


do i wanna know

by merrymegtargaryen



Category: The Spanish Princess (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Coming Untouched, Drugs, Dry Humping, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends With Benefits, Mentioned Suicide Attempt, Scottish Accents, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:15:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27854918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrymegtargaryen/pseuds/merrymegtargaryen
Summary: This was not the trashy fwb fake dating modern au anyone asked for, but it IS the one I'm writing.
Relationships: Margaret Tudor/Alexander Stewart
Comments: 60
Kudos: 36





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [itslaurenmae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/itslaurenmae/gifts).



> I don't even know where to start with this. This is so stupid. But it is also fun. So there's that.
> 
> Eternal thanks to itslaurenmae for encouraging said stupidity and for saying this about it: SOMETIMES THE BEST is a kilted Scottish weed man with a great dick and a hearty commitment to making you come as many times as possible.

The fireworks are loud and bright, the bonfire warm and roaring, and Meg is pleasantly tipsy. This is her first Bonfire Night in Scotland, and so far, she’s enjoying it more than the ones back home. Maybe it’s just the people, who are a livelier, more down-to-earth bunch than the friends and family she usually celebrates with. 

She’s only known her cohorts for two months, but already she likes them. Their program is small but eclectic, and Meg feels like she fits in without having to try. Or without having to wonder if people are just being nice because of who her parents are.

She finishes her cider and heads inside to use the loo. They left the music up so they could hear it outside, and as she opens the door, she is accosted by the sounds of the Glass Animals. The basement is mostly dark save the purple string lights, and by their light Meg can see Alexander Stewart sitting on the couch, focusing on something on the coffee table.

Alexander isn’t in the program, but he hangs out with some of the people in it. Meg doesn’t really like him; he’s not outright rude to her, nor she to him, but they are very different people. He’s a bit rough around the edges and doesn’t seem to have a vocation other than smoking weed. Meg is rather posh and extremely ambitious. She doesn’t judge Alexander by any means, but she gets the feeling that he judges her for being the daughter of two MPs. Two very English MPs, at that.

So she’s surprised when, as she’s coming out of the loo, he asks, “Can ye do me a favor?”

“Uh,” she says uncertainly, “sure.”

“Can you hold up yer phone flashlight so I can see what I’m doing?”

“Uh, sure,” she says again, crossing to the couch where he’s sitting. She pulls up her phone’s flashlight, and is somehow unsurprised to see that he’s rolling spliffs. “Are those all for you?”

“It’s easier if I make ‘em ahead of time.” He jerks his head to the empty place beside him. “Siddown. You can have one, if ye want.”

And Meg, never one to turn down free weed, sits down, keeping her phone flashlight over his hands as he packs and rolls the spliffs. He moves methodically, leaving not a speck of leftover cannabis, and tips all but one of the finished products in a baggie. The last one he offers to her, pulling out his lighter.

“So chivalrous,” she teases, letting him light it for her. 

“Just because I’m kind of a dick doesn’t mean I’m not chivalrous.”

She laughs on her exhale, coughing as she hands him the joint. “I guess that’s fair.”

“I’m not the kind of chivalrous yer used to, I’d gather.”

“No,” she admits. “But there’s chivalry and then...chivalry, you know?”

He huffs out a laugh. “I guess so, yeah.”

“Like my brothers think they’re gentlemen,” she says, unsure of why she’s telling him this, “but one of them is an incel and the other is, um...a prick. But they went to private school so they think they’re untouchable.”

“ _ They _ went te private school?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“ _ We _ went to private school,” she allows, “but I don’t think that’s like, my entire personality.”

He grins beneath his beard, taking the spliff from her again. “Fair enough.”

She bites her lip. “I’m not...just because of my upbringing, it doesn’t...it doesn’t mean...I’m not like them. My family.”

He raises an eyebrow again. “I never said you were.”

“Oh. Right.” She feels a bit stupid now, having said that without prompting. He never said he judged her. Hell, she doesn’t even know if he really feels that way, it was just something she’d assumed about him. 

“Do people often assume things because of yer family?” he asks neutrally.

She huffs out a laugh. “Well, yeah.”

Again with the raised eyebrow. “So what are they, like, royalty or something?”

She stares at him. “You mean you don’t...you don’t know who my family is?”

He gives her a look of amused disbelief. “I’m sorry, are you pulling a ‘do you know who I am’ on me?!”

“No!” she yelps, horrified. “No, I’m just...I’m just surprised, is all.”

He huffs out another laugh, handing her the spliff. “So who are they?”

“No one,” she says at once. “Forget it.” She takes one last puff, handing back the now-thumbnail-sized joint; to her amazement, he pulls out a paperclip, finagling the joint so that it can still be smoked.

“Waste not, want not,” he says cheerfully. He inhales, but she shakes her head when he offers it to her.

“I’m gonna burn myself.”

“You will not.”

“I will!”

“Paper’s burning, woman!” He inhales until there’s nothing left, and then gestures for Meg to come closer. More curious than anything, she leans forward, gasping when he cups his hands over their mouths. He blows smoke into her open mouth, and Meg instinctively inhales. It feels oddly intimate, inhaling smoke that’s already been in his throat. She feels a little lightheaded as she leans back, and not just from the weed.

“I didn’t know that worked outside of movies,” she admits.

“Well, where d’you think they got the idea from?” he asks, extricating the shriveled butt of the spliff from the paperclip. 

“I don’t know. I just assumed it was a plot device designed to make two people kiss.”

“Well,” he says, waggling his eyebrows.

“Well?” she retaliates, unable to keep from grinning. “Was it?”

“Depends.”

“On?”

“If you want to.”

“So chivalrous,” she says again, kissing him.

She doesn’t normally like kissing bearded men, but she likes the way his beard feels against her face, and even better, the way his mouth feels against hers. He tastes like weed and beer, not a combination she normally likes, but tonight she does. The angle is awkward, sitting side by side on the couch, and without thinking, Meg moves to straddle his lap. His hands slide up under her leather jacket, fingers running up and down her back as they kiss. When he starts kissing her neck, beard and teeth scraping against her skin, she moans louder than she means to, hips rocking of their own accord.

Alexander doesn’t seem to mind; he rolls his hips against hers, and oh,  _ fuck, _ it feels good. She can feel him hardening through his jeans, his body responding to hers. She kisses him again, arms around his shoulders as she grinds herself against him. On the one hand, she feels terribly juvenile, dry humping some guy at a party, but on the other, his hands are at her hips now, urging her against him, and Meg is  _ ridiculously _ turned on. Dimly, she’s aware of the Arctic Monkeys’s “Do I Wanna Know” thumping around them, the bassline hitting her just right. 

It all hits her just right, and with a surprised shout, she comes then and there, muffling her whimpers in his shoulder as her hips rock desperately against his. She’s actually trembling a little, something she didn’t even know could happen.

“Jesus Christ,” she whispers.

“Are you…?” he starts to ask hesitantly. 

Meg climbs off his lap, grateful that the low lighting will hide the blush on her face. “I didn’t mean to--”

“Shit--”

“I’m sorry--”

“No it’s--”

“I’m gonna go to the toilet,” she blurts, dashing for the loo again. She closes the door behind her, breathing hard as she leans against the counter. 

That has never happened before. She’s never dry humped someone at a party like that. There had been some light grinding with her first boyfriend, but it had never been enough and he had always seen it as an invitation for other things. 

And she’s  _ certainly _ never finished from dry humping before. Hell, she barely ever finishes from the act itself. Her exes had either not cared enough to help her or their efforts had just been annoying rather than helpful. Orgasms were something she gave herself in the privacy of her room with a toy and no help from a partner.

Coming through her jeans from little more than making out…

She shakes the thought from her head, cleaning up and splashing some cold water on her face. She debates texting Mary or Aunt Maggie, but Aunt Maggie is probably asleep right now, and she would feel weird about texting her teenage sister about this. So as soon as she knows she cannot delay any longer, she braces herself and opens the door. 

There are other people inside now, grabbing drinks from the fridge and chatting. Meg slips past them, up the stairs, out the front door, and onto the street. 

“What,” she mutters to herself, “ _ the fuck?” _


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> itslaurenmae made an awesome playlist for this fic!! You can find it [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5MeuvqnX7FUtnJC1Pecw0Z)
> 
> This chapter is dedicated to the groupchat ;) 
> 
> Suggested music for this chapter: Ooh La La by Goldfrapp. You'll know when.

Try as she might, Meg  _ cannot _ stop thinking about that night. 

It’s just so unlike what she’s used to. She’s made out at parties before, but  _ coming _ from that? No clothes taken off, no touching under their clothes, just her straddling his lap?

When three days have passed and she’s still thinking about it, she calls her Aunt Maggie.

Technically “Aunt” Maggie is her mother’s cousin, but the other woman is closer than a cousin or even an aunt. She’s like the older sister Meg never had, always ready with a sympathetic ear or a sage bit of advice. Meg is hoping for one or both of these when she calls her aunt.

Instead, she gets a small cackle.

“You  _ dry humped _ him?” Aunt Maggie hoots. “What are you, seventeen?”

“It was hot!” Meg insists. “And it wasn’t like...I wasn’t  _ trying _ to get off, it just... _ happened.” _

She can practically hear Aunt Maggie shaking her head. “Well what happened after that?”

“I ran to the toilet because I was so embarrassed.”

“Meg!”

“Well, I was! And by the time I got out other people were hanging out, so I just sort of...Irish goodbye-d.”

“And you haven’t talked to him since?”

“I don’t have his number or his socials. And what would I even say? Sorry for coming on you?”

“Meg...do you think maybe he liked that you came on him?”

Meg turns bright red, even though no one is there to see her face. “Well. No. I mean it was just very...sudden.”

“He said he wanted to kiss you, though, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, but kissing and coming are...two different things.”

Maggie laughs again. “I don’t understand this! You’re a lovely girl, and he was clearly interested; why do you think he’d be upset that you had this...reaction?”

“Eh...he’s not like...most guys I’ve hooked up with before. I don’t know. I didn’t think he liked me until then. I still don’t think he likes me, I think he was just...messing around.”

“Well, why don’t you  _ talk _ to him and find out?”

“That’s horrifying, I can’t.”

“So you’re just going to avoid him for the next two years?”

“Yes?”

“Meg.”

“Fine, next time I see him, I will ask him how he is feeling emotionally about the time we dry humped.” 

“That’s the spirit.”

.

Meg does not, for the record,  _ want _ to have this conversation with Alexander Stewart, but she knows that Maggie is right and she can’t avoid him for the duration of her graduate program. She’s going to run into him sooner or later. 

It turns out to be sooner rather than later.

She goes out to the pubs with her cohorts on Friday night, and is a combination of horrified, relieved, and wholly unsurprised to see Alexander show up. He greets everyone warmly, and though he acts calm, she doesn’t miss the way his eyes keep flicking to her. 

“I’m gonna get a drink, anyone want?” he asks. A few people do, and Meg volunteers to help.

“So,” he says as soon as he’s signaled for four more beers.

“So,” she says. 

“I’m sorry--” they both say at the same time, and then stop short.

“I’m sorry for making things weird,” she plunges ahead. “I was sort of, uh...embarrassed.”

“I could tell,” he mumbles.

God she is  _ so stupid. _ “Not of you or...anything,” she hastens to assure him. “I’m embarrassed that I...um...I don’t really know how to put this...finished? That...quickly.” She could die right now.

Alexander is giving her a disbelieving look. “That’s not...something te be embarrassed about.” 

She wants to die even more now, somehow. “Well, it occurred to me that, um, you hadn’t exactly signed up for that--”

He turns fully to look at her. “D’you think...my goal  _ wasn’t _ te make you come?”

“Oh, gosh,” she says, beet-red and fervently wishing she was dead. “Well...ah…” She can’t even speak. 

He turns in time to catch the drinks the bartender is sliding down the bar. He hands two to Meg, who is trying very hard not to shake. 

“So you weren’t...creeped out?” he asks her.

_ “God, _ no,” she says far too eagerly, and then wants to die again. She speeds back to the table, handing out the drinks. 

Alexander isn’t letting her go that easily, though. As soon as the others are engaged in conversation, he comes around the hightop to lean beside Meg. “Would you be averse te doing it again?” he asks so quietly only she can hear.

And God, that is not fair, the way his voice just  _ does _ that to her. 

“What, dry hump?” she returns just as quietly. 

He takes a sip of his beer, pretending he’s looking at the football game on the flatscreen. “Me making you come again.”

And oh, fuck, it’s on. She tilts her head. “What makes you think you can do it again?”

He hides a smile behind his glass. “That a challenge?”

“Maybe.”

He nods, setting down his glass. “Meet me in the back in two minutes.” 

.

Which is how Meg finds herself getting fingered in a toilet stall while “Ooh La La” by Goldfrapp thumps through the pub. She doesn’t even care about the location, or the fact that anyone could see two pairs of feet in the stall and probably guess what’s going on inside. The music is loud enough to hide her whimpers, and Alexander…

Well.

He doesn’t have a lot of room to work beneath her tights, but he still manages to make her feel better than anyone with full mobility has ever been able to. His other hand has her wrists pinned to the wall above her head, not something that Meg has ever liked until now. 

But then, there are a lot of things Alexander does that she’s never liked until now. 

His mouth at her neck is driving her insane, teeth scraping and tongue licking, and that coupled with the hand between her legs…

“I’m--” she starts to say, and he muffles her shout with a kiss. She moans into his mouth, her thighs shaking around his hand.

“Fuck,” he whispers when she pulls back, breathing hard. 

“Do you wanna come back to mine?” she blurts. 

He smiles. “Ye sure?”

She huffs out a small laugh. “If you can make me come like this in public, I wanna see what you do in private.”

.

Alexander is even better in private, as it turns out, than he is in public...and that’s saying something, considering how easily he’s made her come in public so far. 

It is, without exaggeration, the best sex Meg has ever had. Alexander’s only goal seems to be to make her come as many times as possible; his own pleasure is secondary, and even when he does come, it isn’t the end. That’s the way it’s always been with her and past partners; as soon as the guy came, it was over. But Alexander doesn’t treat his release like the end; it’s just another part of sex. 

Meg finally realizes that sex isn’t over until she says she physically can’t come anymore, and then he settles beside her, flushed and sweating and so hot that she’s almost tempted to ride him again, her own overstimulation be damned.

But she already knows she’ll be walking funny tomorrow, so she gets up to pee like a responsible adult and brings them both glasses of water, which is the least she can do for him after several orgasms in a row. 

“So,” she asks as lightly as she’s able to, “do you do this often?”

“Hook up?”

“Give the Hitachi wand a run for its money.”

Alexander roars with laughter. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep forgetting to mention this, but a few people had expressed concern that this Alexander has his TSP mullet. I would like to reassure you all that I wrote this with s3 Finan hair in mind, so rest easy.

Meg has never had a fuck-buddy before, and she’s discovering that she quite likes it. Sex was always something she built up to with her previous partners, something that was earned after putting in the emotional effort to get to know each other and decide if they were compatible or not. 

It’s the complete opposite with Alexander. The sex isn’t earned, it just is, and there’s no need for an emotional element to it all. They talk a little and laugh a lot, but it’s not necessary to this thing that they have.

Not that Meg doesn’t enjoy talking with him, because she finds that she does, but it’s nice to not have the pressure of having to say the right thing or act the right way all the time. She doesn’t have to pretend to care about his parents or his mates, she doesn’t have to endure music and movies she doesn’t like just to appease him, she can just  _ be. _

It’s very freeing, this dynamic, and Meg appreciates it even more as exams loom closer and she loses all emotional availability. She likes being able to text him at one in the morning asking for him to fuck her into a good night’s sleep, and that he’ll do it without question. Best of all, he’ll leave after he’s done it, and she doesn’t have to be on edge all night and morning, trying to entertain a guest while dealing with her own shit. 

Her birthday falls on a rare Saturday this year, and after a morning spent studying, Alexander answers Meg’s summons to rearrange her guts for her birthday, pretty please. She had texted him the night before, and when she lets him up to her flat now, she’s surprised to see a foil-wrapped plate in his hand.

“What is that?”

“Cake,” he says, setting it down on the counter. 

Meg is oddly touched. “You brought a cake?”

“Well, it’s yer birthday, innit?” he asks with a smile. 

“That’s...so nice of you.” 

It’s obviously homemade, which touches her all the more. He  _ made _ a cake for  _ her. _

“You like chocolate?” 

She nods. “Did you...make this yourself?”

“Yeah.” He clasps his hands. “Here’s the thing. It’s a weed cake. So if you still want me te rearrange yer guts, the cake is gonna have te wait.”

“This is turning into one of my better birthdays,” she says, tugging him forward by the belt loops to kiss him. Alexander backs her into the kitchen island, one hand rubbing her through her silk shorts. The other slides up under her sweatshirt, fingers skimming the band of her bralette. She had wanted to be sexy, but after all, it  _ is _ November in Scotland.

He lifts her onto the counter, where Meg wraps her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, kissing him hungrily. Alexander is just tall enough that when he grinds against her, it hits her in  _ just _ the right place.

It is at that precise moment that the door to her flat opens.

“Happy Birthdaaaayyyy!” her parents sing, and Meg shoves Alexander back and hops off the counter in horror.

“Mum! Dad! What are you doing here?!” she yelps. 

“We came to surprise you for your birthday!” her mum exclaims, holding the string of a foil balloon in the shape of a  _ 24. _

“You said you were studying all day,” her dad says, holding a bouquet of roses, “so we decided to pop on up and surprise you!”

Meg would like to die. “That’s...so nice of you…”

“But clearly we have interrupted something,” her dad says, glancing at Alexander. “Meg, is this your boyfriend?”

Her mouth falls open. “Uh--”

“Yes,” Alexander says, surging forward to shake her father’s hand. “I’m Alexander.”

“Alexander!” her parents exclaim, shaking his hand with undisguised enthusiasm. 

Meg is seriously going to die.

“Darling, you didn’t tell us you had a boyfriend!” her mum says. “And so handsome, too!”

“Mum!”

Alexander gives her a cheeky grin. The little shit is enjoying this. 

“Well, we did think you might be a lesbian for a while--”

“Mum.”

“--I mean all that feminist poetry--”

_ “Mother.” _

“--and there was that period you didn’t shave because of the patriarchy--”

“Elizabeth York-Tudor,” Meg says through gritted teeth.

The smug look slides off of Alexander’s face.

“What your mother is trying to say,” her dad interjects, “is that we’re happy for you. Alexander, I hope we haven’t scared you off, young man.”

“No, sir,” he says, but there’s a caution to his tone that Meg doesn’t miss.

_ He’s figured out who they are. _

“Well, darling, we thought we’d take you out to dinner,” her mum says. “And Alexander, you  _ must _ come with us.”

“Oh,” they both say at the same time, exchanging looks of alarm.

“No, no, we insist,” her dad says. And then, wagging his finger, “Have to size you up, don’t we?”

_ “Dad,” _ Meg says, mortified.

“He’s just joking, of course you seem like a lovely young man,” her mum says. “But you really must come with us. We won’t take no for an answer!”

“Uh, okay,” Alexander says, and her parents beam.

“Wonderful! We’ll see you at the Albany at seven o’clock.”

“The Albany?” Alexander repeats with wide eyes.

“Oh, don’t worry, dinner’s on us!” her mum says brightly. “We’re going to check into our hotel, and then we’ll pick you up at half six, yes?”

“Yes,” Meg says, eager to get rid of them. “See you then.”

“Have fun  _ studying,” _ her dad says with a significant look as he and her mum leave.

“Someday, you will pay for these crimes.” Meg shuts the door behind her parents, turning to look at Alexander with a wince. “Well…”

He points at the door. “Yer parents are fuckin’  _ MPs?!” _

“Yes?”

“Not just any MPs, but the  _ Tudors?!” _

“That’s why I was sort of surprised when you didn’t know who they were,” she admits sheepishly. “And then I was...relieved you didn’t know. So I never brought it up.”

He runs a hand through his hair, which Meg wishes he wouldn’t do, because it’s very sexy. “And they want me te come te dinner with them.”

“That would be correct.”

“At the fuckin’  _ Albany. _ That dinner bill is gonna be more than my monthly rent.” 

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” she tries to reassure him, but he throws her a dark look.

“You’d prefer if I didn’t? Don’t want me embarrassing you in front of mum and dad?”

“I’m not embarrassed of you, I’m embarrassed of  _ them _ ,” she says hotly. “I tried to tell you that night, I’m not like them, and people...they always make assumptions. As soon as I tell people my surname, they make a judgment. I came to Edinburgh to get away from that, but…” She looks down at her hands, fiddling with a loose string in the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before. I liked that you didn’t know who my parents were.”

“The reason I’m upset,” he says, and she winces, “is because I don’t have any dress clothes.”

She smiles despite herself, lifting her eyes to his. The scowl is gone from his face, a wry smile in its place. “Not  _ any?” _

“No,” he says, and then, “well...except fer…”

“Except for what?”

He has a pained look on his face. “My kilt.”

Meg gapes. “You have...a kilt?”

“This is Scotland, of course I have a kilt.”

She tries to look nonchalant. “Well, since you don’t have any dress clothes…”

He blows out a breath. “Feck.”

Meg bites back a smile. “Would you do something for me?”

“What?”

“Will you rearrange my guts  _ while _ wearing the kilt?”

“Jesus Christ, woman,” he says, but she can tell he’s considering it.

.

Meg’s parents text her that they’re out front at exactly 6:30. Meg is wearing an appropriate black dress, and Alexander looks far,  _ far _ too good in his kilt and the black button-up he’d found in his closet. They’d fucked earlier, but Meg is already fantasizing about after dinner.

She has never been to the Albany and actually knows nothing about it, but as soon as they step inside, she understands why Alexander balked at the idea. This place is incredibly upscale, and as soon as they’re seated (at a semi-secluded table, as always, so people don’t bother them), she glances at the menu and has to take a deep breath. Money isn’t an object for her parents, who have inherited plenty of private wealth in addition to their salaries, but the idea of paying so much for food is almost enough to turn her stomach. She knows her parents do it because they love her and want the best for her, but sometimes she wishes they would understand that the best doesn’t have to mean the most expensive or ostentatious.

Her parents ask her about classes, and she gives the same rote responses as always with only a little bit of flourish, and then asks about her siblings before they can turn on Alexander--who, she senses, is starting to regret lying about being her boyfriend and subsequently getting invited to this dinner. 

“Oh, they’re fine,” her mum says with an uncharacteristic lack of elaboration.

Meg glances at her dad. “What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing, darling,” he says, but he looks grim. “You haven’t, er, been keeping up with Catherine’s facebook page, have you?”

Meg barely uses facebook outside of the group that her classmates had set up. “No, why?”

Her parents glance at each other. 

“Well, she and Harry are...trying to have a baby.”

Meg chokes on her water. “They’re  _ what _ ?!” she rasps.

“Well, you know darling, Catherine is very...religious...and raising a family is, er, very important to her.”

“Harry  _ vapes  _ and doesn’t know how to do his own laundry _ ,” _ she points out. “He’s not ready to raise  _ a baby.” _

“Well,” her mum says, clearly having trouble disagreeing with Meg but also not wanting to admit that her son might be a bit of a fuck-up.

Meg glances at her dad. “How’s Arthur taking it?”

Her parents make noises that indicate exactly how he’s taking it.

“Catherine was dating my brother Arthur,” Meg explains to Alexander. “But then she left him for my brother Harry, and Arthur went into a deep depression, and now spends all his free time on r/incels.”

“Now, that isn’t fair,” her mum protests.

“You’re right, he spends  _ most _ of his free time on r/incels, and the rest of it wanking to Catherine’s instagram.”

“You don’t know that!”

Meg and her dad exchange looks.

“Be nice to your brother, Meg; you went through a pretty rough breakup too, if you recall.”

Meg clenches her fork, her heart speeding up a little. “Mum.”

“Lizzie,” her dad mutters.

“Oh, alright. In any case, Catherine is keeping us all updated on her, ah, fertility journey via social media.”

Meg winces. “That’s…”

“A lot,” her father says wryly. “Yes.”

Meg cannot imagine that Harry wants to actually be a father, but she highly doubts her parents know his true feelings on the subject. “How’s Mary?”

“You should follow her on TikTok, where she records  _ every _ minute of every day, apparently,” her mum says with a slight edge. “But in case you don’t, she’s perfectly fine and learns one of these stupid new dances every week, I can’t keep up.”

“You’ll miss it when she goes to uni.”

“Probably,” her mum allows. “So, Alexander, tell us a bit about yourself.”

“Ah,” he says, setting down his fork and knife. “What would you like te know?”

Meg braces herself, because in all her excitement about his kilt, she had forgotten to go over a list of acceptable things to tell her parents. The fact that he is, as far as she can tell, unemployed and constantly smoking weed, is not something that would have made it onto the list. 

“Where did you go to school?”

He handles this question calmly. “I didn’t; I joined the army.”

Meg didn’t know that, and she tries not to show her surprise. 

“Oh, well done,” her dad says approvingly. “I served myself, you know.”

Alexander smiles politely. “Yes, sir.”

“And what do you do now?” 

“Eh, I’m an independent consultant fer my brother’s company. Well, our dad’s company, but my brother took over when our dad passed.”

Meg cannot begin to fathom the amount of bullshit that must have gone into that response, but she nods as if she knows this. 

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” her mum says sincerely.

“It’s alright. He wasnae a great dad.”

Her mum clears her throat, unsure of what to say. “So, how long have you two been together?”

“Uh,” Meg glances at Alexander, vividly remembering Bonfire Night. “Just...under a month.”

“That’s lovely,” her mum gushes. “How did you two meet?”

“Friends. You know. Seeing each other around.”

“And how did it happen?”

_ “Mum.” _

“It was at Bonfire Night,” Alexander says, and Meg looks at him with wide eyes. He just smiles at her and takes her hand as if he does this all the time. “We were at a friend’s house watching the fireworks. She told me I was chivalrous.”

Meg can’t help smiling at this version of events. It does sound sweet when he puts it that way. 

“Oh, that’s  _ lovely,” _ her mum sighs. “Well, you two make a  _ very handsome _ couple. You’re not at all like her ex-boyfriends.”

“Oh my god, Mum.”

“Well, he isn’t!” she insists. “That’s not a bad thing! Sometimes you have to...try on different...types of people to see which one sticks.”

“Can I get you anything else?” the server asks.

“More wine,” Meg says at once.

.

The dinner does not end up being a complete disaster, after all. The food is good, the conversation is decent, and finally, the night is over. Meg’s parents drive her and Alexander back to her flat, but not before making them both promise to come to brunch the next morning. 

“I’m sorry about them--” she says as soon as they’re inside, but Alexander presses her against the door and kisses her.

“Are you gonna fuck me in the kilt?” she asks eagerly.

“Only because it’s yer birthday.” And with that, he bends down, slinging Meg over his shoulder and carrying her off to her room. 

All in all, it’s a good end to an otherwise bizarre birthday.

.

Getting to brunch the next morning is more difficult than Meg had anticipated. She and Alexander had had some of the weed cake last night, and truthfully, she’s still feeling a little out of it. Alexander seems to be, too, but they put on brave faces for her parents.

She’d told him he didn’t have to come to brunch if he didn’t want to, and was secretly glad when he said he wanted to.

“I like yer parents,” he’d said. “They’re…”

“Painfully English?”

“Well, yeah, but they’re cute. They love you a lot.”

She starts to feel more alive after her first cup of coffee, taking a more active role in the conversation. Not that she needs to; her parents, having already had coffee at the hotel, are painfully awake, and they’ve been talking incessantly since brunch started.

“When is your Christmas break again, darling?”

“The eleventh.”

“So you’ll be coming home the twelfth?”

Meg huffs out a laugh. “Maybe, I don’t know yet. I’ll definitely be there for Christmas, though.”

“Alexander, you’ll come too, won’t you?” her mum asks.

He and Meg glance at each other, eyes wide.

“Uh…”

“Oh, say you will!” her mum persists. “It’ll be lovely! You can meet the rest of the family, and London at Christmas is  _ beautiful. _ And of course there’s the Christmas party at Buckingham Palace--”

Alexander isn’t even drinking anything, but he chokes all the same.  _ “Buckingham Palace?” _

“I knew that would get him,” her dad says. “How many of your ex-girlfriends can say they got you into Buckingham Palace, eh?”

“Dad,” Meg warns.

“Alright, I was just trying to help. I didn’t mean to--what’s the word, dear?”

“Flex, I think.”

“Right, right, flex.”

“Please stop using Gen Z slang, oh my  _ god,” _ Meg groans. 

“Well, will you come?” her mum asks, turning back to Alexander.

He glances at Meg again. “I’ll have te think about it.”

Meg tries to imagine Alexander at her family’s house. Her family’s  _ big _ house with a maid and a chef. Her first thought is that he’d hate it, or that he’d feel like he wouldn’t fit in.

But then she thinks about her family, and how Arthur and Harry are both dicks to her, and how Catherine, despite leaving one brother for another, will act painfully self-righteous and judge Meg just like Arthur and Harry. She thinks about how her parents will be  _ on _ all the time, how Mary will be the only tolerable one, but she’ll spend the whole break with friends and boyfriends as usual. She thinks about how she’d like to have someone there who was just hers, someone she could retreat to her room with to have sex or smoke a covert spliff or just get away for a bit. 

“You should come,” she tells Alexander, taking his hand. To her parents, it looks like a natural moment between two partners, but she can see the understanding in Alexander’s eyes. 

“Alright,” he says at last. “I’ll come.”

“Wonderful!” her parents exclaim, and they start babbling about all the lovely things they’ll do for Christmas.

Meg, however, can’t help wondering if she’s just made a huge mistake.


	4. Chapter 4

Exams comes upon Meg so quickly that she disappears into a hole of studying and revising. When she emerges at last, it is the eleventh, and she realizes that her flat is a mess of takeout boxes, stacks of papers, and unwashed clothes. She also realizes that her phone, which she has put on Do Not Disturb, is full of unread notifications. Most of them are from her parents wishing her good luck and asking for confirmation for Christmas plans, but a couple, she notices with guilt, are from Alexander. One tells her good luck on her exams, which she finds oddly touching, and the second asks if she’s dead. She smiles at that, pulling up his message so she can respond.

_ Not dead, sorry, just overwhelmed.  _

He texts back almost immediately. 

**_You survived then?_ **

_ Barely. But I survived! _

**_Cheers. Doing anything to celebrate?_ **

_ Are you offering? _

**_Maybe._ **

_ Well then maybe I will be ready for company in two hours. _

**_Duly noted._ **

Meg grins, putting down her phone so she can start putting the place to rights. By the time she gets out of the shower, it’s been nearly two hours; she’s pulling on clothes when her phone lights up, her mother’s face flashing across the screen.

“Hi, Mum.”

“Darling! We haven’t heard from you in days!”

“I was taking exams.”

“I know, but we were worried you’d gotten kidnapped or something!”

“I’m fine.”

The buzzer goes off, and, suspecting she knows who it is, Meg buzzes him up. 

“So how were they?”

“Exams? Fine.”

“Do you think you did well?”

“I don’t know, probably. I won’t have results for a while yet.” She opens the door when she hears Alexander in the hall, rolling her eyes at the phone. “Can I call you back?”

“Well, your father and I have dinner tonight, we just wanted to cement your plans for Christmas…”

“I don’t know yet, Mum.”

Alexander mouths, “Mum?” At Meg’s nod, he grins and mouths, “Put me on.”

“No,” she mouths back. 

“Well, darling, Christmas is right around the corner, and we have to have everything ready--”

“Fine, give me a second.” She puts down the phone. “Mum wants to know when we’re coming for Christmas.”

“I don’t know, when d’you wanna go?” he asks in his normal speaking voice--which is quite loud now that Meg thinks about it.

“Is that Alexander?” her mum asks, loud enough that he can hear. “Oh, tell him I said hello!”

“Mum says hello,” she deadpans. 

“Hello, Mum.”

“Oh, lovely!” 

“You want to go on Thursday?” Meg asks, ignoring her mum. “Better traffic then.”

“Sure.”

She brings the phone back up to her head. “We’ll be there on Thursday, Mum.”

“And you’ll stay for New Year’s, won’t you?”

“I don’t know, Mum--”

“Yes we will,” Alexander says into the phone.

“Oh, perfect!” her mum trills. “Alright, I’ll let you two lovebirds go, and see you Thursday!”

As soon as she ends the call, Meg points her phone accusingly at Alexander. “We are  _ not _ staying until New Year’s.”

“Why not?” he asks, laughing. 

“Because that is  _ too much _ time with my family.”

“Consider,” he says, moving closer, “you will have as much dick and weed at yer disposal as you like.”

“You make a compelling point.” She wraps her arms around his shoulders. “Do you really not mind? Spending Christmas  _ and _ New Year’s with my family?”

He shrugs. “Don’t really have anything else te do.”

That makes her sad. “You don’t have any family?”

He shrugs again, stiffening a little. “Just a half-brother. We don’t really talk.”

Sensing he would like the subject to be closed, she prods, “So about all this dick and weed at my disposal…”

He picks her up with one easy movement, carrying her to the bedroom, where all thoughts of Christmas and family are pushed to the side. 

.

Meg enjoys the lazy handful of days between the end of exams and the inevitable trip south. She does nothing but eat, sleep, binge watch bad TV, smoke weed, and have sex. For someone who’s always on, it feels good to be off, just for a little bit.

On Thursday morning, Alexander picks her up in a Vauxhall that’s seen better days. Her parents had offered to pay for their train tickets down, but Alexander had bluntly told Meg that he was planning to bring an exorbitant amount of weed and didn’t want to risk bringing it on a train. Meg, who will be the beneficiary of this exorbitant amount of weed, had agreed. Besides, having a car at their disposal will mean they can get away from her family whenever they want. 

“Have you ever been to London before?” she asks once they’re out of the city and she doesn’t need to play navigator anymore. 

“A couple times, but I don’t really remember it.”

“Too drunk?”

“I was a bairn the first time I went!” he says, mock-offended. “I was drunk the  _ second _ time.”

Meg laughs. “There’s good drinking in London. But fair warning, my parents will probably want to take you to all the historic sites since they have special access.”

“We’re definitely going te Buckingham Palace, though?”

“Yes, they’ve put in my plus one,” she says with a smile.

“Yer plus one? Aren’t you a plus one?”

“Well...no.”

“Oh, yer like, a full-fledged guest?”

“MPs and their children are always invited to the party hosted by parliament, and the other parties are  _ for the family.” _ She adds that last part in a muffled murmur.

“They’re fer the  _ what?” _

_ “For the family,” _ she mumbles again.

“Did you say  _ for the family?” _

She gives him a guilty smile. “I’m sort of...related? To the royal family?”

“You are  _ not.” _

“Very distantly,” she adds quickly. “But...yes.”

He gapes at her. “D’you exchange Christmas cards with the royal family?”

“My parents do.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“A lot of people in British politics are distantly related to the royal family,” she tries to defend, albeit halfheartedly. 

“Were you at the royal wedding?”

“Which one?”

“Both.”

“I...was at Will and Kate’s wedding...and Harry and Meghan’s, yes. But so were like a billion other people.” She decides not to tell him she also went to Eugenie and Beatrice’s weddings, as she feels like that might be overkill. “Honestly most of it is because my parents are MPs, not because we’re like...duchesses or something. We’re not even invited to the Christmas party in Sandringham.”

He presses a hand to his heart. “Oh, my mistake.”

“Shut up,” she laughs. “It’s not a big deal. We only ever go to the big Christmas party.”

“But you get invited te others?”

“Officially,” she admits. “But...I don’t really like going to them anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Believe it or not, the royal family and the people they invite to their parties are  _ incredibly _ lame.”

“I believe it.” He glances at her. “Does the rest of yer family go?”

“Usually. Unfortunately. Arthur won’t go this year, though.”

“Well, great, we can spend the evening with him,” Alexander deadpans. 

Meg laughs. “You...will hate him.”

“Probably. I’ll probably hate yer other brother, too.”

“You’ll  _ definitely _ hate Harry,” she agrees. “He’s a real lad.”

“Of course he is.”

“Mary’s alright, though. She still hangs out with the posh crowd, but I think she’s getting better.”

“So yer just the black sheep of the family.”

“Pretty much. Middle child syndrome and all that.”

“So what do I need te know before we get there?”

Meg considers this question. “I think we’ve pretty well covered my family. All the important stuff, anyway. The extended family is less important; they’ll all come to Christmas dinner, and they’ll all want to know about you.”

“See if I stack up?” he asks wryly.

“Well...yes.”

“What I do, where I went te school.”

“Right.” She hesitates. “When you said you’re an independent consultant for your brother’s company…”

He smiles. “Ye didn’t believe me.”

“So it’s true?”

He’s quiet for a moment. “Yes and no. See, the thing is...my brother and I are half-brothers. My mum was the other woman.”

Meg can feel her jaw drop. “So you were…?”

“The product of an affair, aye.” He takes a deep breath. “My dad was a right prick, te be quite honest with ye. I don’t wanna...get into too much detail, but let’s just say he didnae leave anything te me or my mum when he died. I didnae have a great life. My half-brother found out about me and sort of...took it upon himself te help me out. I  _ do _ work fer the company, I just...get paid more than I should fer the work I do. My brother’s way of taking care of me.”

“That’s nice of him.”

“It is. So, te answer yer question, yes, I am an independent consultant, if anyone asks.”

“Duly noted.”

He clears his throat, reaching for the radio. “Alright, enough talking about me. Ye ever listened te Frightened Rabbit?”

“Is that a band?”

“It’s a  _ Scottish _ band, and my favorite.”

Meg leans back in her seat, listening to the indie rock. “Not bad,” she admits.

.

By the time they’ve reached London, Meg is belting out the lyrics to “The Woodpile” in a poor Scottish accent. She can tell Alexander is hiding a grin, though whether that’s because he’s glad she likes the band or because he thinks her Scottish accent is charmingly atrocious, she doesn’t know. 

They turn down the music so she can direct him through the city to her parents’ house in Westminster. They’ve unfortunately gotten stuck in rush hour traffic, so it’s dinnertime when they finally pull up to the house. 

“Jesus,” Alexander mutters when they get out of the car. “Feel like I’m gonna get towed just fer parking here.”

His Vauxhall  _ does _ look a bit out of place amongst the nice, neat row of houses, but Meg wisely decides not to say anything else. Instead, she leads him up the walk, using her key to let them in.

“Hello?” she calls as they come inside.

“Meg!” Her mum appears from around the corner, elated to see her. “Oh, darling, we’re so glad you made it! I said to your father you were probably stuck in rush hour traffic.” She embraces Meg and then reaches for Alexander. “Alexander, it’s so good to see you again!”

“And you,” he says politely, and Meg can tell that he’s probably not used to hugging his girlfriends’ mums. Which reminds her to ask him how many girlfriends’ parents he’s actually met before.

“Come in, come in!” Her mum leads them inside once they’ve taken off their coats, calling, “Look who’s here, everybody!”

“Everybody” turns out to be Meg’s dad, Harry, Catherine, and Mary. Arthur, Meg suspects, is in his room.

Her dad greets Alexander warmly, shaking him firmly by the hand as he introduces him to the others. Catherine is polite and Mary seems excited to meet Meg’s new boyfriend, but Meg can already see a glint in Harry’s eye that she’s sure is going to mean trouble.

“You’re Meg’s boyfriend?” Harry asks in an uncharacteristically deep voice. 

“I am.”

“Did she pay you or something?” he jokes.

“Oh, Harry,” their mum scolds. “Mary, will you go get your brother for dinner, please?”

Mary pouts. “Do I  _ have _ to?”

“Well, maybe if someone else wants to--”

“Nose goes,” Meg says at once, and everyone’s hand rushes to their face so they don’t have to be the one to go up to Arthur’s cave. Her dad is the loser; with a pout of his own, he troops his way up to Arthur’s room. The others move into the dining room, which is decorated for Christmas. The chef, Lambert, begins to serve them.

“Do you have,” Alexander whispers to Meg, “a fucking personal chef?”

“Did I not mention Lambert?” she whispers back.

“His name is  _ Lambert?!” _

“What are you two whispering about?” Harry demands from across the table, his joking smile not quite meeting his eyes. 

_ So he’s going to be a dick. _

“He’s reminding me of his going rate, since I paid him to be here and all, apparently,” Meg says flatly. 

“Harry was just joking,” Catherine says, wrapped around her husband as always. “I’m so glad you’ve found love again, Meg. Real love this time, I hope.”

“Er, thank you, Catherine,” Meg says awkwardly. 

“Is that...a Spanish accent?” Alexander asks.

Catherine beams. “Yes, I am from Spain. Have you ever been?”

“Afraid not.”

“Neither has this one,” Catherine says, squeezing Harry’s chin. “I’m hoping to take him...and hopefully my parents can meet their grandchild,” she adds with a beam.

Meg glances at Mary, who rolls her eyes as if to say,  _ She’s been like this for weeks. _ “Are you…?”

“Not yet. But we’re trying. I’ll be ovulating next week.”

Alexander chokes on his water. 

“That is good to know,” Meg says wryly, patting him on the back. 

“Don’t be a dick, Scrapper,” Harry tells her.

“I’m not being a dick. I support you and your wife in your baby-making endeavors.”

It is at that moment that her dad and Arthur appear in the dining room. Arthur looks the same as always, with a bad haircut and a vaguely nauseous look on his face. 

“Hello, Meg,” he says tonelessly. 

“Well, hello to you too,” she says with far more cheer. 

“Hello,” Alexander says politely.

Arthur glances at him and then takes his seat without saying a word. 

“Ignore him,” Meg whispers. 

“Gladly.”

“Isn’t this nice?” her mum says, beaming around at all of them. “The whole family here for Christmas!”

“The whole family’s always here for Christmas,” Arthur points out with the same toneless voice.

“Yes, but it’s still nice.”

“Who all is coming to Christmas dinner?” Meg asks.

“Aunt Maggie and her kids are coming, and your cousin Stafford. I think Charlie Brandon said he’d come, too. And your dad invited the Boleyns, but I don’t know if they’ll be coming.”

“The Boleyns?” Harry asks with a frown. “They’re not family.”

“Neither is Charlie, but we’re still inviting him.”

“Charlie is  _ like _ family,” Harry corrects. “The Boleyns aren’t.”

“Do you object to the Boleyns coming to Christmas dinner?” their dad asks with a frown.

“No, I just think it’s weird. They’ve never come before.”

“Well, change is never a bad thing,” their mum says brightly. 

Harry shoots Meg a look. “Apparently.”

Meg knows he’s trying to goad her, and if it was just her family, she might let him. But she doesn’t want to get into it now, in front of Alexander, so she just takes a bite of her chicken and smiles serenely at her brother. He smiles back, but Meg can tell that he’s going to make this holiday a difficult one.


	5. Chapter 5

“Yer family is, uh…”

“Insane?”

Alexander huffs out a laugh as they pull their suitcases from the trunk of his Vauxhall. “I was gonna say  _ different, _ but…”

“They are insane. You can say it.”

“I wouldn’t go that far just yet. But I see what ye mean.”

“About?”

He closes the trunk. “All of it. Harry hates me.”

She sighs. “He’s...threatened.”

“Threatened?”

“Most of my exes were friends of his,” she explains as they haul their things to the house. “Or the kinds of blokes he’d be friends with. Or they just really wanted him to like them. He has this sort of...magnetic personality to some people, I think. But he doesn’t have anything in common with you and you aren’t trying to win his approval, and he doesn’t know what to do with that.”

“And Arthur?”

“I honestly don’t even know what goes through his head anymore,” she admits. “But he didn’t say anything rude, which is a good sign. I think.” She pushes open the door, leading him to the stairs.

“Sure ye don’t have a porter te take these for us?” he whispers.

“Shut up.”

“A butler named Jeeves, perhaps?”

“We had to let him go; budget cuts, you know.”

“Of course.”

She flashes him a guilty look. “We do have a house cleaner, though.”

“A house cleaner? What the fuck is that? Like a maid?”

“You can’t say ‘maid’ anymore, the correct term is house cleaner, and we have one of those. Her name is Cathy and she comes five days a week.”

“How often does Lambert come?”

“Four days a week; Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and he spends all Sunday helping us meal-prep for the week.”

“Is his name actually Lambert or did Parliament assign him that name?”

She laughs at that. “His name is really Lambert. He’s very proper. In here.” She leads him into her old bedroom, which is just as she left it in August. Everything is still in its proper place, but she knows Cathy must have been in here recently because there isn’t any dust and the bedding smells freshly laundered. 

“Well,” she says a bit unnecessarily, “this is it.”

He looks around the room, nodding. “This is almost exactly what I pictured.”

“No it is not.”

He points. “Bookshelf that takes up almost an entire wall, and I’m willing te bet the empty spaces are all the books ye brought to Edinburgh. Band poster. Black and white photography. Bed frame that was obviously picked out by a teenage girl. Shag rug. Chair next te the closet, which I presume is fer trying on outfits. No less than  _ seven _ crystals from when you were in an inevitable witchy stage.”

“You are just making shit up now.”

“Or I know ye better than ye think I do,” he says, grinning. 

“No, you’re definitely making shit up,” she says, hiding her own grin as she unzips her suitcase. 

“Meg! Alexander!” her mum calls from downstairs. “Harry and Catherine are leaving, come say bye!”

“Bye,” Meg shouts back.

“Oh, Meg!”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine.” She abandons her suitcase, leading Alexander back down the stairs. Arthur’s door is closed, an electrical hum on the other side indicating that his computer is on, as always. Meg momentarily envies him for having an excuse to not say goodbye to Harry and Catherine.

The couple are shrugging into their coats by the door, Catherine animatedly talking about the fertility yoga she’s been doing. Everyone else looks pained, but none more so than Harry. 

“Bye, guys, it was lovely to see you,” Meg interrupts, embracing her sister-in-law. Catherine, momentarily stunned, stops talking and hugs her back. 

“He’s handsome,” Catherine whispers to Meg, nodding to where Harry is gripping Alexander’s hand. Alexander looks as if he’s trying not to laugh. 

“He is,” Meg agrees.

“I hope you find happiness with him, Meg.” Catherine pulls back, her eyes shining; she blinks and smiles before melting into Harry’s side. “Ready to go?”

“Mm.” He pulls out his vape pen and opens the door. “Bye, everyone.”

“Bye,” everyone choruses.

Mary closes the door. “God, what a dick.”

“Mary!”

“Who vapes?!” she asks in disgust. “And I swear to god, if I have to hear about Catherine’s ovulation cycle  _ one _ more time--”

“I cannot believe she just casually told the whole family at the dinner table she and Harry are gonna be raw-dogging it next week.”

“Margaret Tudor, that is enough!” her mum says sternly. “I do  _ not _ want to think about your brother...mmm...nope.”

“Catherine’s the one who said it!”

“Yes, but she’s...allowed to express her...excitement,” her mum says delicately. 

“I wish she wouldn’t,” her dad mumbles.

“We all do, but we’re family, so we have to just...deal with it.” Her mum looks flustered. “Alright, look, Dad and I have a long day tomorrow, so we’re going to bed; Meg, Alexander, you need anything before we go?”

“We’ve got it, Mum.”

“Right, well, goodnight, all.” 

As soon as their parents are upstairs, Mary turns to Meg and Alexander with an excited look. “I think I can get us some weed.”

Meg presses a hand to her heart. “That is adorable.”

Mary frowns. “What? Why?”

Meg glances at Alexander, both of them asking unspoken questions; she asking how he feels about letting someone else smoke from his stash, and he asking if she actually wants to smoke with her little sister. When the answer to both seems to be yes, they nod and turn back to Mary. 

“Come with us,” Meg says, taking her sister by the hand. “I guarantee you Alexander has better weed than whatever Charlie Brandon is trying to sell you.”

“How did you know--? You know what, never mind.”

.

Meg plugs up the door and pulls up her Spotify while Mary cracks a window and disables the smoke detector and Alexander rolls spliffs. All necessary precautions in place, they light the first spliff and pass it around, blowing the smoke out the cracked window and trying not to cough too loudly. 

“I wish Arthur wasn’t such a creep these days,” Mary says. “I’d have liked to smoke with him.”

“Arthur never smoked. But he could probably use it,” Meg says, handing the spliff to Alexander. “Has he...gotten worse?”

“Definitely,” Mary agrees. “Once Catherine announced she was trying for a baby, he lost it.” She gives her sister a conspiratorial look. “You know that’s why she left Arthur in the first place, right? Because he’s sterile.”

Meg gapes. “I thought Harry…?”

“Oh, I mean, he was definitely trying to bang her, but Catherine was all...you know. Catholic about it. But I guess Arthur never told her about the whole...you know. And as soon as she found out, she threw her knickers at Harry.”

“What’s the whole, you know?” Alexander asks, glancing between the two.

Meg sighs. “Arthur has this like, really rare genetic thing. He was in hospital a lot when he was...what, fifteen? Sixteen? He’s fine now, but basically this genetic disorder means he can’t have any kids.”

“Harry’s the one that told her,” Mary says smugly. 

“Prick,” Meg mutters.

“He’s like, definitely cheating on her.”

“How can he cheat on her when she doesn’t give him breathing room?”

“Maybe not like, cheat-cheating, but he’s always texting in corners and shit. They’re five seconds away from getting a shared facebook account.”

“They basically already have one; his entire facebook is just five hundred pictures tagged by Catherine and every six months he’ll post a picture of his vape.” 

Mary takes the spliff. “Speaking of couples on socials, why haven’t I seen you two post anything?”

Meg glances at Alexander. “Is that...a requirement?”

“I guess not. It just made it very hard to vet him.”

“I don’t really use socials,” Alexander says. “But you can ask me whatever ye want.”

Mary seizes the opportunity. “How long have you been dating?”

“Since early November.”

“How long did you know each other before you started dating?”

“Eh, a couple months?”

“What made you want to date my sister?”

“Jesus, Mary,” Meg says, flushing.

But Alexander doesn’t hesitate. “I thought she was really cute. Good kisser.”

Meg buries her face in her hands.

Mary adopts a mock-serious tone. “And what are your intentions with her?”

“What, like, tonight?”

“Enough!” Meg interrupts at last, face red. 

Mary grins. “I’m done. For now.”

The spliff is down to its end now; Alexander pulls out his paperclip, smoking what’s left. He gestures for Meg to lean in, and they’ve done this so many times since that first night that she doesn’t hesitate, just lets him cup his hands between their mouths as she inhales his smoke. Even now, after doing this almost every time they share a spliff, it still makes her feel light and giddy and warm to be sharing smoke like this. 

“Jesus,” Mary says, standing up. “It’s like watching softcore porn. Which reminds me, I have some sexts to send,” she adds as she makes her way to the door.

“Who the  _ fuck _ are you sexting?! You’re an infant?!” Meg demands, horrified.

“I’m eighteen, and I seem to recall  _ you _ having--”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

Mary grins, toeing free the towel and slipping out of the room. Meg pushes the towel back into place, not wanting the smell to spill out into the hallway. 

“What was she gonna say?” Alexander asks, grinning.

Meg gives him a guilty smile. “I might have been having actual sex when I was younger than her.”

He raises his eyebrows. “How much younger?”

“Sixteen.” She closes the window, reaching up to lock it in place. “Do you want to know something truly terrible about me?”

“Absolutely.”

“I lost my virginity on a yacht.”

He laughs loudly. “No you did not.”

“I did,” she admits, sitting down beside him. “My boyfriend was one of Harry’s friends and they were having this party...ugh. I thought it would be? I don’t know, romantic? Out on the sea?”

“Well, was it?” he asks with a grin.

Meg makes a face. “He was an eighteen-year-old boy who unironically wore boat shoes and had whiskey dick.”

“Oh,  _ no.” _

“It was very underwhelming. He broke up with me later because he said I was too frigid.”

“What a dick.”

“It’s okay, I fucked him a few years later just to prove I wasn’t frigid.”

“How’d that go?”

“He had whiskey dick again, so not great.” Deciding she’s talked enough about her ex, she moves to straddle Alexander’s lap. “Wanna fool around?”

He responds by kissing her, his hands sliding under her shirt to caress her. Meg grinds against him, already ridiculously turned on. The shared spliff has given her a pleasant buzz, and when she rocks her hips against his, the pleasant feeling magnifies. She rocks herself to an orgasm, muffling her moans in his shoulder as her hips stutter against his.

“I love how you do that,” he murmurs, and she flushes. 

“What, come?”

He makes a strangled sort of noise. “Well...yeah.”

Not knowing what else to say, she kisses him, reaching down to rub him through his jeans. In a moment he’s got her on the flat of her back on the shag rug, pulling off her pants. This is the only article of clothing removed; she’s faintly thinking of how unsexy her socks are when he’s pushing inside her, and Meg muffles a groan in her arm. 

“Quiet,” he whispers, tugging down her collar to nip at the swell of her breast. “Don’t want yer parents te hear.”

Meg has had sex in this room before, with the house in varying levels of occupancy, but the danger of being caught, of someone hearing, has never been this delicious before. Maybe it’s because she wasn’t really turned on those other times, and it had just been a quick fuck to get it out of her boyfriends’ systems. Her own release would come later in the shower, if indeed she still wanted it. She’s never felt this turned on in her own house, being fucked on the floor by a man who can get her off without even touching her. She knows she’s fairly vocal when they have sex, but that’s almost always been in her very private flat. Here, in her childhood room with her parents and siblings down the hall…

She muffles her cries in her hand as she comes again, back arching off the floor. Alexander’s release comes right as hers is ending, and for a moment they are locked together, pleasure feeding into pleasure. 

When he finishes, he doesn’t move back; instead, he rolls onto his side, pulling Meg with him. They lie in a tangle of limbs for a long moment, listening to Hozier as their heartbeats return to normal. She knows she should get up to pee like a responsible person, but just now, she’s comfortable, and Alexander feels good in and against her and around her.


	6. Chapter 6

Meg, Alexander, and Mary spend a lazy morning and afternoon lounging around in the living room and watching what can only be described as trashy television. Mary and Alexander are getting along, which makes Meg happy; even though she isn’t  _ really _ dating Alexander, it’s nice to know that her sister gets along with her...fuck-buddy slash weed hookup?

Arthur comes down from his bower approximately once, during which time he stands awkwardly at the threshold to the living room but does not enter as he watches TV. It’s very unnerving, and Meg is about to ask him if she can help him when he suddenly asks, “How’s school?”

Meg blinks. “Uh, good. It’s good.”

He nods and then retreats upstairs without another word.

Meg and Mary glance at each other.

“Damn,” Mary says.

Alexander glances between them. “Was that...bad?”

“On the contrary. That was the Arthur equivalent of a heart-to-heart.”

.

They hear the front door open not long later, but rather than Meg’s parents, she hears the booming tones of Harry, accompanied by a high, feminine voice she doesn’t know. A moment later, Harry appears at the door, a short blonde woman beside him. 

“Isn’t this cozy,” he remarks upon seeing the other three. The woman beside him bursts into giggles.

“Can I help you?” Meg asks flatly.

“Just needed to grab something. Why so grouchy, Scrapper?”

“Oh, you know, I’m ovulating next week, puts me in a mood.”

Now it’s Mary’s turn to burst into giggles. Harry’s face reddens, but he wisely leaves them, the blonde woman trailing after him. 

Meg glances at Mary. “Who…?”

“That’s Bessie,” Mary says quietly. “She’s one of Catherine’s ‘friends.’” She puts the word in air quotes. “She’s in his phone as a cat emoji.”

_ “Jesus.” _

“I know.”

“Why does he call you Scrapper?” Alexander asks, and Meg flushes.

“It’s just a stupid boarding school nickname. Everyone has them.”

“But why Scrapper?”

“Because Meg used to get into fights,” Mary supplies cheerfully.

“Mary!”

“Well, it’s true.”

Alexander looks delighted.  _ “You?” _

“I was...an energetic child,” Meg says diplomatically. 

“You got into a fight in sixth form.”

“Like I said: a child.”

“You were seventeen.”

_ “A child.” _

“You used te beat up the other kids?” Alexander asks, still grinning.

Mary answers for her. “She mostly beat up Harry, who quite deserved it, if you ask me.”

“What did I deserve?” Harry asks, poking his head into the living room.

“Meg beating the shit out of you when you were kids.”

“Aw, yeah. Meg always did have a lot of aggression,” Harry says impishly.

“Aw, you still upset that I’m more of a man than you?”

Harry reaches for Meg, and what he intends to do, she doesn’t know, because instinct takes over and she flips him over the couch. He lands flat on his back, unharmed but furious.

“Jesus, Meg!”

“Look at that, I can still do it,” she says cheerfully. 

Harry rolls onto his side with a glare. “You’re lucky your boyfriend’s here or--”

“Yeah, yeah, you’d kick my arse, I’m sure. Are you done yet?”

Harry gets up, masking a wince, and storms out of the room. They can hear Bessie’s booties tapping quickly on the hardwood floor, and then the door slam as she and Harry leave.

“That was fucking hot,” Alexander says at once.

“And that’s why they call me Scrapper.”

.

Dinner is a slightly more formal affair tonight; Catherine, Aunt Maggie, Ursula, and Stafford are all coming over, though Harry, oddly, is not. 

“He’s having a boys’ night,” Catherine says with a wan smile when asked.

From a corner where Catherine can’t see her, Mary imitates a blowjob.

“You’re not with the boys tonight, Stafford?” Meg asks her cousin.

He smiles. “Getting a bit old for that, I think. And to be honest I can’t stand the vaping.”

Stafford was always closer to Harry than the others, but he’s clearly changed since the last time Meg saw him. Gone is the lad she once knew, and in his place is a man who has better things to do than play aux cord DJ to a group of twenty-somethings still pretending they’re teenagers. 

Catherine seems equally enthralled with the change, spending most of the evening talking to him in dulcet tones. Arthur, who had begun the evening with an obvious optimism at Harry’s absence, watches with a glare and an ever-tightening grip on his fork until he finally asks to be excused. 

“She’s going to work her way through the whole family,” Aunt Maggie murmurs to Meg while the conversation is turned elsewhere. “Both your brothers, now your cousin…”

“Harry probably deserves it, though.”

Aunt Maggie nods to Meg’s other side. “That the one you were telling me about?”

Meg flushes. “Yes.”

Aunt Maggie has a smug look on her face. “I see.”

_ “Don’t _ say anything.”

“I would never.” Aunt Maggie glances at him again. “He’s  _ very _ good-looking, though.”

Meg flushes. “I know.”

“If I was twenty-four again--”

_ “Don’t say anything.” _

.

The two women don’t really get a chance to speak privately after dinner; the gathering is so intimate that their absence would be noted, and even so, Meg doesn’t want to leave Alexander alone with her family. But there is a moment, when Mary and Ursula are making TikToks and Catherine has once again dominated the conversation, when Aunt Maggie leans over and says quietly, “So are you two still just...friends with benefits pretending to be dating, or have things...progressed?”

Meg flushes. “We’re still just...friends with benefits pretending to be dating.”

Aunt Maggie nods, sipping her wine. “Pity.”

Meg glances at her. “Why?”

Aunt Maggie shrugs. “You just seem...to fit very nicely.”

Meg doesn’t know what to say to that. “Oh. Okay.”

At that moment, Alexander turns to her, tapping her near-empty glass of wine. “Need a refill?”

“Yes, please.”

He takes her glass, kissing her cheek before he gets up to refill it. Meg glances at Aunt Maggie, who smiles into her own wine glass.

_ Damn it. _

.

In the morning, Meg’s parents insist on showing Alexander around London. 

“He doesn’t want to do touristy things,” Meg tries to tell them, but Alexander takes it in stride. He endures the visit to the Tower and Westminster Palace, the walk along the Christmas-decorated streets, and the ride on the Eye. They have to pause every so often so Meg’s parents can smile and chat with people for a photo op, something that mortifies Meg to no end, but this, too, Alexander takes in stride.

Mary brings her own camera, taking artsy photos of London, but every now and then she’ll get a candid of her family. 

“It has to be a candid,” she insists when her parents try to pose. “Those are the only good ones. It’s when people look their  _ truest.” _

“Well, I don’t know about that, Mary, dear, but your mother and I would like a group picture, if you please.”

And Alexander endures this, too, leaning in to the group photo with a polite smile on his face. 

“I’m sorry about them,” Meg says as soon as they’re back in her room, changing for the party at Buckingham Palace tonight. She feels like she does a lot of apologizing for her parents where Alexander is concerned.

He must feel that way, too, because he shakes his head with a grin. “Ye don’t have te keep apologizing fer them. I like yer parents.”

Meg raises her eyebrows.  _ “Really?” _

“They’re, ah...not what I’m used to.” 

“And that’s a good thing?”

He shrugs. “Not really a fan of what I’m used to, te be honest.”

She remembers what he said about his dad and decides not to press the matter. “Well, I’m glad, because I find them mortifying. Do you know how many times I got that lecture about the Tower growing up?”

He grins. “I can guess.”

“Can you bring a spliff or two?”

He raises his eyebrows. “You want te smoke at  _ Buckingham Palace?” _

“People will be doing coke in the toilets, a spliff will  _ not _ be a problem.”

“Friends of yers?”

“Former friends.” Meg hesitates. “Most of them are going to be there tonight. They’re...well, they’re kind of...the worst. I’ll try to keep you away from them as much as possible, but…”

“I’m a big kid,” he says wryly. “I can handle it.”

But Meg privately doesn’t think he can. And it isn’t that she doubts the thickness of his skin when it comes to things like this, but she knows the people she used to be friends with, and she knows what they can be like when they’re letting loose. 

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she jokes. “Are you ready to go?”

“As I’ll ever be.”


	7. Chapter 7

The night goes surprisingly well…

...at least at first.

Alexander is a good sport about everything, from the press trying to get pictures and sound bites outside to the poshery inside. He is polite if not pleasant to all the people Meg’s parents introduce him to, he is personable with Meg’s old friends, and he even makes an effort to get along with Harry, who, under the influence of a never-ending flow of champagne, reciprocates. 

Everyone likes him, or at least seems to. Meg knows her former friends well enough to know that they could never  _ truly _ like someone like Alexander, but they are being kind to him, which is more than Meg dared hope for. 

And when the party gets to be a little too boring for Meg’s taste, when she suspects Alexander could use a break, she takes him to the Royal Mews, devoid of the guests who would rather be drinking in a ballroom than tromping around display stables, and smokes a spliff with him. After, they climb into the Gold State Carriage, where she gives him what she imagines is the most decadent blowjob of his life. 

“Yer incredible,” he murmurs after.

“I bet you say that to all the girls who suck you off in two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old carriages.”

It’s a good night and she’s having a wonderful time.

Until, suddenly, she isn’t.

She doesn’t know what changes or why. She only knows that she goes to the toilet, running into what feels like a hundred acquaintances on the way to and from, and when she gets back, Alexander has a troubled look on his face.

“What happened?” she asks, grabbing a glass of champagne. 

He shakes his head, offering a wan smile. “Nothing. Just tired.”

“It’ll be over soon.” She leans in, murmuring, “We could go to the Gold State Carriage again.”

He keeps that wan smile on his face, shaking his head. “Too tired fer that, I think.”

“You really  _ are _ tired. I’ll see if Mum and Dad can move things along.”

.

Moving things along, of course, means that it’s another hour and a half before they finally make their way out of the party. Meg is exhausted by the time she climbs into bed, but even as she settles, she can’t help notice that Alexander is wide awake. 

Too tired to think much of it, she rolls onto her side and falls asleep.

.

The bed is empty when she wakes late in the morning. She doesn’t think much of it, tired and a little hungover from the night before. She showers and puts on fresh pajamas before heading down to make a cup of coffee.

Alexander is in the kitchen, headphones on while he does something on his laptop. He looks up at Meg, and maybe it’s just her imagination, but it almost looks as if his face falls. 

“What are you up to?” she asks, shoving a mug underneath the Keurig.

“Work.”

“Ah, yes, your extremely independent consulting.”

He doesn’t crack a smile. In fact, he looks downright on edge.

“Is everything okay?” she prods, sitting at the table.

“Fine.” He doesn’t meet her eye, just stares ahead at his screen.

“Okay...you’re acting weird.”

“How am I acting weird?” he asks, jaw tightening.

She stares at him. “Alexander...what’s going on? Seriously?”

He’s quiet for a long moment. Then, “I think maybe I should head back te Edinburgh.”

Her heart plummets. “Why?”

He shakes his head, still not looking at her. “I just...don’t think it’s a good idea. Me being here. I don’t fit in.”

“But...my family loves you,” she says, confused. “Did someone say something?”

“It’s not important.”

“Yes it fucking is,” she says, angry now. “Who was it? What did they say?”

“It doesnae matter,” he says firmly. “They were right. I don’t...belong here.”

Her jaw clenches. “It was Harry, wasn’t it?”

His eyes flicker to hers. “Maybe.”

She lets out a small growl. “Do not listen to my brother. He’s a giant fucking prick who’s threatened by you, remember?”

“But maybe he was right about this.” He sounds so sad and it breaks her heart. He’s always seemed untouchable to her, someone who doesn’t care about anything, let alone dicks like Harry. 

She takes his hand. “Look...I want you to know I mean this to be a compliment...if you  _ belonged _ in the same circles as Harry, I wouldn’t have brought you home for Christmas. If you  _ belonged _ in the crowd from the party, you wouldn’t be sitting in my kitchen right now.”

He huffs out a small laugh. “You brought me home fer Christmas because yer parents thought we were dating and invited me.”

“Oh, and you forced me to bring you along, did you? I couldn’t have found a way out of it if I didn’t want to spend Christmas with you?”

He hesitates. “I guess not.”

She gets out of her chair, straddling his lap and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “You’re here because I want you to be,” she says softly. “And not just for the sex and the weed. I like you a lot. And I like you a lot  _ because _ you’re not like those people from last night.”

The Keurig beeps.

“Yer coffee’s ready,” he mutters, still not looking at her.

“It can wait. This can’t.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Right.”

She presses her forehead to his. “Please don’t leave.”

He heaves a sigh. “Ye know something?”

“What?”

“Yer really fucking cute.”

She grins, kissing him. She can feel him smiling against her lips, his hands settling at her hips. His thumb dips under her shirt, stroking the bare skin there. It feels so good,  _ he _ feels so good, that without meaning to, she begins to rock her hips against his. He groans low in his throat, his grip on her hips tightening as he grinds against her. She can feel him through his sweatpants, getting harder by the second. She grips the back of the chair, dragging her hips with determination as he drags his teeth down her neck.

It is at that moment that she hears the floorboards in the hall creak. Her eyes snap open as she sits upright. “Shit,” she hisses, climbing off his lap--and not a moment too soon, for her father pushes through the kitchen door, yawning. Meg makes for the Keurig, pretending this was her destination all along.

“Morning, Dad!” she says far too brightly.

Her dad grunts. “Not so loud.”

She glances at Alexander, who’s moved his laptop to his lap, face red. She looks back at her dad. “Did someone have too much to drink last night?”

“Mm.” He opens the cabinet, groping for a mug. “I used to be able to hold my liquor.”

“Dad, you’ve never been able to hold your liquor.”

“Not true. I could hold it once. When I was a younger man.” He glances at Meg and Alexander. “You’re telling me neither of you are hungover?”

“I’m Scottish, sir,” Alexander says, and her dad chuckles.

“Fair enough. What are you up to this morning?” he asks, taking a seat at the table.

“Just getting some work done.”

“Good man,” her dad says, pleased. “And what are you up to, Meg?”

“Bothering him.”

“Hmm.” He takes her coffee mug, taking a sip.

“That’s mine!”

“I need it more than you do.” He takes another sip and then slides it back to her. “By the way, Harry is coming over for dinner tonight.”

Meg glances at Alexander, who has suddenly become engrossed with his screen. “Does he have to?”

“Now, now, darling, don’t be that way; he is your brother, after all.”

“He’s a dick,” she says bluntly. “And isn’t Catherine ovulating this week or whatever?”

“It is  _ too early _ for that, Meg.” He gets up to retrieve his own coffee from the Keurig. “And truth be told, I think that might be why your brother wants to come over for dinner tonight.”

Meg raises her eyebrows. “What, to fend her off?”

Her dad lowers his voice. “Don’t say anything to your mother, but...I don’t think Harry is, er,  _ jumping for joy, _ shall we say, at the prospect of fatherhood.”

“As tends to happen when one has the emotional capacity of a twelve-year-old.”

“Now, that’s not fair. He has the emotional capacity of a fourteen-year-old, at least.” He glances at Alexander. “Ah, Alexander, you mustn’t judge me too harshly.”

“Not judging at all, sir.”

Meg glances at Alexander, who shakes his head at her subtly. Now is not the time to bring up last night. 

“He knows Harry’s immature,” she says instead, sipping her coffee. “Dad, does he really have to come over for dinner?”

Her dad chuckles. “Meg, I can’t tell my son not to come over for dinner just because his sister doesn’t like him.”

“Well, you  _ could…” _

“I really could not.”

It is at that moment that Arthur appears, making a beeline for the fridge. 

“Morning, big man!” their dad greets.

“Morning.”

“What are you up to this morning?”

Arthur turns to give them a serious look. “Something big.”

Meg raises her eyebrows. “Really?”

Arthur turns back to the fridge, pulling out a cup of yogurt. “Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Can’t talk about it. You’ll find out soon enough.” And with that, he leaves.

The three of them glance at each other.

“Do you think he’s building a bomb?” Meg asks.

“Meg!” her dad scolds, but only halfheartedly.

.

Later, after they’ve managed to slip away from her dad, Meg and Alexander go up to her room and finish what they started in the kitchen. The tension from this morning is gone, replaced by a tenderness that takes Meg’s breath away. Alexander kisses his way up and down her body, his fingers bringing her to the edge over and over again. 

They’re a sweaty, sticky mess by the time it’s over. Meg takes a shower lest her family see her in such a state, but then Alexander follows her, and next thing she knows, her back is to the cold tile wall and he’s inside her again. 

“You feel so fucking good,” he groans into her neck. “I wanna be inside you all the time.”

That is easily one of the hottest things anyone has ever said to Meg, and she wonders, not for the first time, what on earth she did to deserve Alexander. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up that this chapter talks about a past suicide attempt and subsequent hospitalization, so tread with care!

After nearly a full day of fucking and cuddling, Meg is so blissed out that she forgets Harry and Catherine are coming to dinner quite literally until they walk through the door. Her good mood evaporates as she looks at her brother and remembers whatever he told Alexander last night. Deciding she’ll confront him after dinner, she goes into the kitchen to pour a huge glass of wine while Catherine bores everyone with tales of her fertility yoga.

“Jesus Christ,” Alexander whispers, slipping into the kitchen after her. “She really is obsessed with the baby thing.”

“What even is fertility yoga?” she laughs.

“I imagine it’s something like...this.” Alexander moves in until his hips are pinning hers against the counter. Even though they’ve been fucking all day, Meg feels him stiffen slightly beneath his jeans, and she, too, feels a rush of warmth between her legs. 

“So, sex?” she asks with a grin.

“Well...aye.” He kisses her, one hand sliding up under her shirt. 

“Do you mind? People eat in here.”

They look up to see Harry glowering in the doorway. Alexander starts to step away, but Meg grips his arm, keeping him beside her.

“I’m sorry,” she says lightly. “Does Alexander not  _ belong _ here, either?”

“Meg,” he mutters, but Harry smirks.

“You told her? Went running to your girlfriend for reassurance that she  _ does _ care about you, that you  _ aren’t _ just some guy she’s slumming with?”

“Harry,” she says tersely, “if you know what’s good for you, you’ll shut up.”

“What’s good for  _ me?” _ he asks in disbelief. “What about what’s good for  _ you, _ Meg?”

“And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, come off it,” he scoffs. “Like you aren’t self-destructing by dating guys who are just gonna disappoint you. Or put you in the mental hospital again.”

She feels a cold trickle run down her spine. “Don’t.”

Harry grins, looking between her and Alexander. “Oh, he doesn’t know?”

“Harry,” she says urgently, “don’t.”

But Harry isn’t going to stop now. She’s already pissed him off, and now he’s going to get revenge. “Meg didn’t tell you about her ex? He was her professor, you see, and he was married with children, only Meg didn’t know about that, and when she found out, she tried to kill herself and ended up spending six months in the loony bin.”

Meg can barely breathe, barely think. Even now, three years later, the memory of that time, of that place, leaves her rooted to the spot. 

_ And now Alexander knows. _

It’s the one thing she’s tried not to tell him, the one secret she wanted to remain in her past. She’s told him so much about her and he’s accepted it without judgment...but this is different.

“Fuck you, Harry,” she whispers, and forces herself to walk out of the kitchen as quickly as she can, bypassing the others to run up the stairs and into her room. She sinks onto the shag rug between her bed and the window, pushing open the window so she can breathe. 

Alexander finds her clutching a pillow and crying, the room cold with the December night air.

“Hey,” he says softly, dropping down beside her. 

She reflexively throws up a peace sign. 

“Are you okay?”

She sniffs. “Do you mean, like, right at this moment, or in general?”

“Both, I guess.”

She wipes her eyes, too afraid to meet his. “Right now, I’m not doing great. In general I’m fine. Just...embarrassed.”

“Why are you embarrassed?”

She scoffs. “Because...that was an embarrassing thing I didn’t want people to know. It was the absolute lowest point of my life and I thought...I don’t know. I thought if I ignored it hard enough it would just...go away eventually.” She wipes her eyes again. “And things were going so well and...I don’t want you to think less of me because of something stupid I did years ago.”

“I don’t think less of you,” he says, confused. “And it doesn’t sound like you did something stupid.”

“No, I was stupid.” She huffs out a bitter laugh. “I fell in love with my professor like some stupid cliche. I was convinced…” She trails off, embarrassed.

“I’d like te hear about it,” Alexander says gently. “If you’d like te talk about it.”

Meg glances at him and, seeing that he’s sincere, nods. She takes a deep breath, trying to steady her voice to tell the story. 

“He was my lit professor. James. I knew he was old enough to be my dad but...I was charmed by him. My whole life, people had treated me like a posh party girl who only got into good schools because of Mummy and Daddy. He made me feel...like I was smart. Like I had good ideas. No one had ever made me feel that way before. I came to see him during his office hours, then we started getting coffee, and then…” She sighs. “He said we had to be careful because he was my professor, and I got that. I felt like...we understood each other. Like we had this connection that transcended age or our relationship at uni. I was so fucking stupid.”

“You were a kid.”

She shakes her head. “I was old enough to know better.” She wipes her eyes. “So I came to his place one day and...this woman was there. Older than me. His age. And she looked at me and she just...she  _ knew. _ I freaked out. James just tried to get me out the door and she was threatening to call the police. I was so scared I didn’t even go to class for two weeks. James finally called and told me it was complicated, that he and his wife were separated and he didn’t love her and she wouldn’t sign the divorce papers. And I...bought it. So we kept seeing each other. Months went by, and I...I finally realized he was never going to leave her. So I showed up to his house unannounced to give him an ultimatum. And...she was there. He wasn’t. She told me that I wasn’t the first girl he’d done this to and I wouldn’t be the last. She showed me pictures of their kids. And that was the first time I really realized...that I was a bad person.”

“You weren’t,” he tries to tell her, but she shakes her head.

“I really felt like I was. She made me feel so small and stupid. I’d convinced myself I was special but I was just another girl who fell in love with a married man and strung herself along. I wondered if I was really as smart as he made me think I was. And then I realized, no, of course not, I was a fucking idiot, and a homewrecker, and...I don’t know. It caught up to me. I didn’t have a lot of friends at uni and I knew my boarding school friends wouldn’t understand, and I couldn’t tell my family. I got to a really dark place. So I took a bunch of pills. And then immediately threw them up and called my Aunt Maggie because...I didn’t know what else to do.” 

She rubs her forehead, trying to push away the memories of that gut-wrenching ride to the hospital, the tang of vomit and her own tears in her mouth. 

“They put me in a psych ward for six months, and honestly, I barely remember that period of my life. I just sat around in pajamas all day watching  _ Keeping Up with the Kardashians _ and  _ Unsolved Mysteries. _ When I got out my parents basically forbade my siblings from talking about it. They told everyone I was studying abroad, which is what you always say when your daughter is off somewhere being disappointing, and they pulled some strings to get me into a different uni. And I have tried every day since then to forget about that time in my life, but...I can’t.”

Alexander is quiet for a moment, and she’s afraid this was too much for him...but then he laces his fingers with hers and says, “I’m glad yer here.”

She breathes sharply, not having expected that reaction. “Well. Thanks.”

“Can I hold you?”

“Yes please,” she says quietly, melting against him. His arms are warm and comforting around her, his heartbeat calm and steady against her ear. 

He’s quiet for another moment, and then, “Yer brother’s a fucking prick.”

“Yeah.”

“D’you want me te beat him up?”

She actually laughs a little. “Well, yes, but no. I’ll get him back later.”

“That’s such a fucked up thing fer him te say.”

She breathes deeply. “He was hoping you’d freak out.” She hesitates. “Are you? Freaking out?”

“Not a bit.”

“Really?”

He shifts so that he’s leaning against the bed, Meg still curled up in his arms. “So...ye know how I said my brother...helped me out?”

She looks up at him. “Yes?”

He hesitates. “Well...the thing is...I was in a really dark place fer a while, too. See, my mum died while I was in the army, and I just...I didn’t have anyone after that. I was massively depressed, but, ye know, ye didn’t really...talk about that stuff in the army. I couldnae hold down a job. All I did was drink and fight people. I ended up homeless. I got arrested fer public drunkenness. I’m not proud of that. Somehow my half-brother found out, and I’d never even met him. But he bailed me out, sent me to rehab, put me up in a nice flat. It was hard fer both of us fer a while. Took us a long time te get where we are now.” He clears his throat. “What I’m trying te say is, I get what it feels like te have this black hole in yer life that ye don’t want anyone te know about, that ye just want te put behind ye.”

Meg reaches up to brush her lips against his jaw. “Thank you. For telling me that.” She settles back against him, and she doesn’t think she imagines the way he relaxes--almost as if he’d been afraid to tell her about his past, too.

“Can we,” she asks slowly, “smoke a shit-ton of weed?”

“Fuck yeah we can.”

.

They do smoke a shit-ton of weed, leaning out the window to blow out the smoke, even though Meg’s pretty sure that everyone knows by now what they’re doing. She’d gotten a few texts from Mary asking if she was okay; she responded that she was fine, just couldn’t deal with Harry right now. 

_ Girl me either :( _ Mary texted back, but whatever she said to their parents must have worked, because no one else bothers Meg and Alexander for the rest of the dinner. 

They’re leaning out the window and blowing smoke when they see Harry and Catherine finally leave. Harry stops, looking around for what Meg imagines is a strong smell; he finally looks up, seeing her and Alexander at the window.

She and Harry stare at each other for a long moment, Meg unable to read the look on his face, until Catherine finally takes Henry’s arm and pulls him to their car. 

“I’ll beat him up,” Alexander mutters. “Just say the word.”

“That is extremely sexy of you,” Meg tells him, “but if anyone’s going to beat him up, it’s going to be me.”

“Now  _ that _ is extremely sexy,” he murmurs, kissing her.

An odd sort of knocking comes at the door, almost as if someone is lightly kicking it. “Meg? It’s Mary. I brought food.”

Meg gets up to let her in; Mary is carrying plates in both hands, hence the kick-knocking. 

“Can I smoke with you guys?”

“Sure.” Meg lets her in, closing the door behind her. Mary sets down the two plates, piled high with roast chicken, seared vegetables, and dinner rolls.

“I tried to get the good stuff.”

“Bless you.” Meg digs into her plate while Alexander hands the spliff to Mary.

“Dare I ask what happened?”

Meg sighs. “Just Harry being...Harry.”

“He was  _ super _ on edge. Like he knew he’d stepped in it.”

“Good,” Meg says bitterly. 

“Oh, and Catherine spent all of dinner talking about ovulation.”

“Naturally.”

“Dad was traumatized. I think he wants them to get pregnant more than anybody so she’ll stop talking about it.”

“Yeah, but then she’ll just talk about being pregnant all the time.”

Mary hesitates. “Is it bad I don’t want her to get pregnant? At least, not with Harry.”

“No,” Meg says bluntly. “Do you remember over the summer when he rang and asked me how much a pinch of salt was because he was trying to make pasta for the first time? He can’t raise a  _ baby. _ He’d be a terrible dad.”

A knock comes on the door, and the three of them freeze and look at each other. There are only three other people in the house, and none of them smoke.

“Who is it?” Meg calls.

“It’s Mum. Can I come in?”

“Shit,” Meg mouths, and the three of them scramble to hide the weed as Meg gets up. She cracks open the door, giving her mum a winning smile. “What’s up?”

“Are you smoking Mary Jane?”

“Mum, no one calls it that anymore. And...what makes you think that?”

“I went to uni, Meg, I know what it smells like. I’d like to come in, if you please.”

Guiltily, Meg lets her mother into the room, which does have a distinct aroma to it. The older woman crosses to the shag rug, standing over a pale-faced Mary and Alexander. Then, to everyone’s surprise, she sits down and asks very properly, “May I join you?”

“What?” Mary asks in disbelief.

“Well, I don’t have to, if that’s too weird.”

“No, it’s...I just didn’t know you were that cool.”

“I’m very cool,” their mum insists.

Meg closes the door, watching in amazement as Alexander lights a new spliff for her mum like a gentleman. She takes a long drag, holds it, and then exhales like a pro. 

“You’ve been holding out on us,” Meg accuses, taking her place by Alexander. 

“I didn’t want to be one of those...cool parents, you know the kind I mean,” her mum huffs, handing the spliff to her. 

“Have you been smoking this whole time?”

“No, I stopped when I went into politics. But after dealing with Catherine tonight I think I’ve quite deserved it.”

The other three burst into laughter, unable to believe that they’re hearing Lizzie finally complaining about her daughter-in-law.

“Let it all out, Mum,” Mary urges.

She’s halfway through a rant about how tired she is of hearing about Catherine’s gyno visits when the door opens and Meg’s dad pokes his head inside. 

“May I join you?” he asks.

“Oh, why the hell not,” Meg says, and watches in amazement as her dad joins the circle.

The cherry on top, however, is when Arthur enters the room, staring at them from the threshold.

“May I smoke with you?” he asks formally.

“YES!” everyone shouts, budging up to make room for him. They watch in delight as Arthur takes a practiced toke. 

“I didn’t know you smoked!” Meg exclaims. 

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” he says with a real smile.

It is easily one of the bizarrest nights of Meg’s life, but at the same time, it is one of the best. By the time her family troops out a long time later, Harry’s earlier jab is a distant, blurry memory. 

When she and Alexander climb into bed at last, she murmurs, “So you’re gonna stay here, right? You’re not gonna go back to Edinburgh?”

He chuckles, a low, warm sound. “Not without you.”

Lighter than air, Meg smiles and settles against him. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back! Two more chapters to go!

The next couple days pass in a delightfully cozy haze. Meg and Alexander spend most of their time either in her bed or on the couch with Mary, who’s usually too absorbed in her phone to pay them much mind. At night they have dinner with her parents and then smoke with Mary.

Harry and Catherine, thankfully, do not come over to the house in that time. Meg doesn’t think she can carry a civil conversation with her brother after what he said on Sunday, and she  _ knows _ Alexander won’t be able to. In the rare moments Harry comes up in conversation, Alexander’s entire being stiffens, and she suspects that it would take very little for him and Harry to come to blows.

She wouldn’t mind, if he could get away with it. She doesn’t need Alexander to defend her honor and they both know it, but it would be satisfying to watch the guy Harry’s always trying to put down and cast out punch him in the face.

But that would hardly go over well with her family, so she’ll just have to fantasize about it until the opportunity presents itself--if it ever does.

.

On Wednesday, Aunt Maggie invites Meg, Alexander, and Mary over for dinner. They spend a happy evening sitting by the fire and chatting with an informality they aren’t often afforded in the York-Tudor household. 

“So Alexander, how are you finding London?” Aunt Maggie asks. “Have you seen much of the city since you got here?”

“He’s seen much of Meg’s bedroom,” Mary says without looking up from her phone.

“Jesus, Mary!” Meg snaps.

“I’m just saying, there’s been a lot of boinking happening--”

“Mary, I swear to God…”

“Well, we’ve all been young and in love once,” Aunt Maggie says cheerfully, and Meg immediately turns red. 

_ In love. _

She truthfully hasn’t really stopped to examine her relationship with Alexander. She feels positive that this...whatever it is between them, is more than just friends with benefits at this point. They haven’t talked about it, but they almost don’t need to. She just... _ knows. _

But love? Love is a strong word. Love is a  _ big _ word. Love is so...real. 

And yet...

She doesn’t look at Alexander, too embarrassed to look at  _ anyone, _ but he squeezes her thigh and...well, she doesn’t quite know what to make of that. 

.

They stay later than they meant to, but Meg doesn’t mind; she always has a good time with Aunt Maggie, and Alexander seems to be having a good time, too. 

Two things happen on the ride back home.

The first is that Meg’s mum texts her and asks if she could pick up some things from the store.

The second is that Mary asks if they can drop her off at a friend’s house.

Meg doesn’t think much of either request, but as Mary gives Alexander directions to her friend’s house, it occurs to Meg that she knows where they’re going. It hits her right as they pull up in front of the house.

“Mary,” she asks in shock, “are you...oh...my...god.” She whirls around in her seat. “Are you seeing Charlie Brandon?!”

Mary reaches around the seat to grip Meg’s arm. “Please don’t tell Harry.”

“Is that who you’ve been sexting?!  _ Charlie Brandon?!” _

“Meg, seriously, please do not tell anyone, but  _ especially _ Harry,” Mary begs. “He would lose his  _ fucking _ mind.”

He would, and Meg knows he would. Even though Charlie is younger than Harry by several years, the two have been close friends for a long time, and Harry will not take this well. It was one thing for his friends to date Meg, who’s only a year and some change apart from him, but for one of them to date  _ Mary, _ the baby?

“I won’t tell him,” Meg says at last, “but you’re like...being safe, right?”

“Oh my god,  _ Mum, _ of course I’m being safe,” Mary huffs. “You gave me an  _ extensive _ lecture about safe sex and contraception and the importance of consent when I was  _ thirteen.” _

“I just want to make sure.” 

“I’m being safe, he’s a perfect gentleman, and if you tell Harry, I will kill you.”

“Duly noted.”

Mary slides out of the car, bobbing merrily up the walk to Charlie’s house. 

“I can’t believe I just accompanied my sister to a dick appointment.”

“That’s the true meaning of Christmas.”

.

“Okay,” Meg says when they get inside the store. “We need milk, biscuits, toothpaste, and...something for my mum.”

“Something fer yer mum?” Alexander asks with raised eyebrows.

“Something of the hygienic persuasion. She specifically asked me not to let you see it.”

“Ah, okay. I’ll get the milk and biscuits?”

“Bless you.” 

He kisses her, and Meg can’t help giving him a dopey smile when he pulls back. He doesn’t have to kiss her here, where they aren’t performing for her family. He’s kissing her because he wants to. 

Maybe love isn’t that far off from what they have, after all.

She’s closest to the aisle with toothpaste and mouthwash, so she heads there first; she’s looking for the brand her mum usually uses when she hears an all-too-familiar voice.

“SCRAPPAHHH!”

Meg winces. She knows that voice. It belongs to Muffy, one of her friends from boarding school and one of the attendees at the Christmas party a few nights ago. 

Once, Muffy was Meg’s best friend. They lived in the same dorm and they shared everything--clothes, makeup, spliffs, even boyfriends. But when they went to separate unis, Meg focused more on her studies and Muffy focused more on partying. They tried to keep up with video calls, but Muffy was always doing something. And then Meg had been admitted to the psych ward, and when she got out, Muffy had almost completely forgotten about her. She hadn’t tried to check in with Meg once in those six months, not even to say hello.

Meg has remained civil whenever their paths cross, which is inevitable given that their parents are all politicians, but she cannot say she feels any sort of kinship with Muffy anymore. 

She straightens up now, smiling as she turns to look at Muffy. Beside her is Pips, another girl Meg had once been close to. They look like the same person, both slim, blonde women dressed far too nicely for a grocery run. Both of them, Meg has not failed to notice, have enormous diamonds on their ring fingers.

“Scrappah!” Muffy says again, air-kissing her. “It was so good to see you at the party!”

“Yeah, you too,” Meg says to her and Pips. 

“And I see you got rid of that ghastly Scotsman.”

Meg freezes. “What do you mean?”

Muffy laughs loudly. “Oh, please! Harry told us you brought him for a lark.”

_ Fucking Harry. _

“Did he now?”

“Oh, yes! I must say, you put up  _ quite _ the charade. We actually thought you were dating until Harry said it was just a joke! And thank God, because we were starting to worry about your mental health, weren’t we, Pips?”

“Oh, yes, totally,” Pips agrees. She always had been sycophantic. “Thought you’d gone off your rocker, dating a person like that.”

“I’m sure he’s cracker in the sack, of course,” Muffy continues, tossing a wave of golden hair, “but that’s about all those blokes are good for, isn’t it?”

_ “Did _ you shag him?” Pips wants to know. “I mean, he looked too dirty for my taste, but no judgment, of course; we’re all entitled to slum it once or twice before we settle down--”

She doesn’t finish her sentence, because just then Meg punches her in the face. 

“That’s my  _ fucking _ boyfriend, you cunt!” she shouts, seeing red as Pips crashes into the mouthwash. She rears back to punch Muffy, too, but a pair of strong arms wraps around her middle, hauling her down the aisle. She flails in the stranger’s grip. “Let me--”

“You need te calm down before they call the police,” Alexander says, carrying her out to his car. 

As soon as he sets her down, she whirls to face him. “Those fucking cunts--”

He kisses her hungrily, his hips pinning hers against his car. She moans, her rage melting into something else.

“No one’s ever done that fer me before,” he breathes after a long moment, his forehead pressed to hers. 

Realization dawns. “You heard what they were saying.”

“I did. And I saw what you did. I’ve never...no one’s ever done that fer me before. And ye didn’t have to. Ye could’ve just let them talk shit and then moved on, but you didn’t.”

“I’d never let anybody talk shit about you,” she says, surprised. “Whether you’re around or not.”

He kisses her again, and she doesn’t miss the way he’s hardening against her, the way his hands are touching her.

“Backseat, now,” she pants. He fumbles with the keys, unlocking the Vauxhaull; they scramble into the backseat, Meg climbing into Alexander’s lap and kissing him so eagerly that she pins him against the door, grinding against him.

“Fuck me,” Alexander breathes, so she does.

.

When they finally stumble through her parents’ front door a long time later, flushed and empty-handed, her mum raises an eyebrow.

“They...were out,” Meg lies. “Of...everything.”

“Everything?” her mum repeats.

“Yep,” Meg says. “Everything.” After an awkward pause, she grabs Alexander’s hand and pulls him up the stairs.

“That wasn’t suspicious at  _ all--” _ he says as soon as they’re in her room, but she pushes him onto the bed and climbs over him before he can say anything else.

.

She fucks Alexander until all the rage from the store has left her and they lie in an exhausted heap on her bed. As tired as she is, she finds it oddly endearing when he gives her bottom a light smack and says, “Go pee.”

She grins, pulling herself out of bed. When she climbs back in, Alexander pulls her close and kisses her as though she’s been gone longer than sixty seconds. 

“Meg?”

“Hmm?”

He’s quiet for a moment, tracing the ridges of her spine. “What if we...weren’t pretending te date?”

She furrows her brow. “What...do you mean?”

“I mean...what if we were, like...actually dating?”

The room is just dark enough that she can’t fully read his face, the dull pink light from her covered lamp only showing her part of him. She wonders if he can see the blush on her face.

“Is that...what you want?”

“I asked you first.”

She can’t help but smile.  _ He wants this to be real. _ “Well...what would it mean? Dating for real?”

“Well...it’d be like this,” he says, running the tips of his fingers up and down her arm. “Sleeping together. Smoking together. Having incredible sex.”

“I’m listening.”

“But it’d mean being together in public, too. Going places together. Being together around our friends. Not sneaking off te the toilets between rounds at the pub.”

“Consider,” Meg says, “being together around our friends  _ and also _ sneaking off to the toilets between rounds at the pub.”

“I’m considering,” he says, and she can hear the grin in his voice. 

“Good, because I’ve developed a Pavlovian response to that one toilet stall.”

He laughs loudly, pulling her closer. “Alright, we can still sneak off te the toilets.”

“Then I think we should do it.”

“Mm?”

“Date for real.”

Pressed so close to him, she doesn’t miss the way he catches his breath. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

“Good, because...I’m mad about you, Meg.”

She hides her grin in his chest. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She bites her lip, thinking about what Aunt Maggie said at dinner. “I think...I love you?”

His breath catches again. “You...think?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever really...been...in love? Before?” She hates how she’s phrasing it like a question, so uncharacteristically uncertain of herself. “I mean, there was...James...but that was...I don’t know. That was so different. So I don’t...know for sure? But...I mean...I’m pretty sure.” She cringes at herself. “Did I just kill the whole vibe?”

“Not even a little.” He buries his face in her neck. “Because I think I love you too.”

She takes a deep breath, one of both surprise and relief. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She breathes a sigh of relief, tipping her head up to kiss him. He rolls her onto her back, settling between her legs. Even though they’ve just finished, she can already feel the promising friction between them. Their breathing is heavy, their kisses deepening when her phone buzzes with an incoming call.

She moves to silence it, wondering who the hell is calling her at this hour, and then sees Mary’s face on the screen. She hesitates.

“Go on,” Alexander says patiently, and she loves him a little more for that.

Meg answers her phone, running her fingers through Alexander’s hair as he rests his head on her chest. “Are you okay?”

“Oh my god, you don’t have to freak out,” Mary huffs. 

“You called me instead of texting, how was I not supposed to freak out?”

“Okay, fair enough. Um, are Mum and Dad still awake?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Uh…” Mary hesitates. “I sort of...have a massive hickey I don’t want them to see.”

“Oh my  _ god. _ I answered the phone for this?!”

Alexander is trying (and failing) to stifle his snickers in her chest. 

“Oh my god, were you fucking?”

Meg heaves a sigh. “How massive is this hickey?”

“Ah, let’s just say a scarf won’t cover it.”

_ “Jesus, _ Mary!”

“Can you just make sure Mum and Dad aren’t around?”

Meg groans. “Fine.” She nudges Alexander off of her, reaching for her clothes. Dressed enough, she creeps past her parents’ room, seeing no light beneath the door, and then pads down the stairs just to be sure. Hearing no one else in the house, she opens the front door, spying an idling car on the curb. A moment later, Mary emerges, shuffling up to the house.

“Thank you,” she whispers, slipping inside.

“Let’s see it,” Meg says, closing the door.

Mary pulls down her scarf.

“Holy  _ shit.” _

“Yeah.”

“You should put toothpaste on it.”

“Really?” Mary asks with interest.

“Yeah. It helps a bit. But you’ll still need a shit ton of concealer.”

As they head upstairs, Mary says, “Sorry for...interrupting.”

“It’s fine,” Meg laughs quietly, not wanting to wake their parents. “I’ll always pick up for you.” She throws an arm around her sister, squeezing her as they reach the top of the stairs. “But seriously, a  _ shit ton _ of concealer, or Harry’s gonna ask questions and figure it out tomorrow.”

“Ugh, I know.” Mary gives her a small smile. “Thanks, Meg.”

“Anytime.” 

The sisters part, heading for their respective rooms. Meg closes the door behind her, smiling when she sees Alexander still sprawled on her bed. 

“How big was the hickey?” 

She demonstrates with her own throat. 

“That bad?”

She nods, pulling off her clothes. “She better hope Harry doesn’t put two and two together.”

“You know what?”

“What?” she asks, climbing into bed beside him.

“I bet he wouldn’t notice her hickey if you had an even  _ bigger _ one.”

Meg grins. “I bet you’re right. But I’m telling you, it was  _ massive.” _

“I never back down from a challenge,” he says, moving over her. 

Meg’s giggle melts into a moan.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is literally the chapter that made me want to write this whole fic in the first place, so I hope you enjoy.

The house is an uproar all the next day as they prepare for the Christmas Eve dinner. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if not for the Boleyns, who have never come to Christmas dinner before and who Meg’s parents therefore want to impress.

Meg could not care less about the Boleyns, even if they are neighbors. Ever since her and Alexander’s revelation last night, all she can think about is him. She keeps slipping away from her parents to make out with him in a corner, eager to get this dinner over with so they can be alone again. 

The guests trickle in in twos and threes, bearing pans of brownies and bottles of wine. Everyone is in a merry mood, sharing the season’s greetings and admiring the Christmas decorations. Even Harry is tolerable, though that’s mostly because he hides out in a corner until dinner is ready.

And that’s where everything goes to hell.

It starts off fine, with cheerful conversation and compliments on the cooking, but Meg notices that Arthur is practically vibrating. She glances at Mary, who looks equally nonplussed at their brother’s behavior. 

“Are you okay?” Meg asks him softly.

In a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone, Arthur says, “I’m fantastic, Meg. In fact, I haven’t felt this alive in a very long time.”

Somehow, Meg knows this is a bad sign.

He stands up, drawing all eyes to him. “Catherine,” he says in a clear, ringing voice, “Harry is not the man you think he is.”

“Oh, Christ,” their dad mutters, putting his head in his hands.

“Arthur,” Catherine says uncomfortably, “we’ve been through this--”

“No, Catherine. We haven’t. You see, I’ve recently discovered that Harry has been cheating on you.”

The table falls completely silent.

“Arthur…” Harry says with a warning tone.

“The ones I have solid proof of are Bessie Blount and  _ both _ the Boleyn sisters,” Arthur continues dramatically. “There are probably more.”

The Boleyn sisters shrink back in their seats, staring at their plates.

“Arthur, darling,” their mum tries, but he’s determined now.

“And that isn’t all. Harry’s been lying to you. You haven’t been able to conceive with him because you can’t. He’s sterile.”

Meg feels her jaw drop as she and everyone else whirl their heads to look at Harry, whose face is bright red.

“Harry,” Catherine says uncertainly, her already pale face turning even paler, “is this...true?”

“We’re both sterile,” Arthur plows on. “He got tested years back when I was in hospital. He’s known for a long time, but he never said anything.”

“Harry?” Catherine asks again, visibly distressed, “is this true?”

Harry’s quiet for a long moment, his glare burning into Arthur’s. And then, “It’s true.”

Catherine gets up so suddenly she knocks over her chair. “You knew this whole time?! I’ve been trying  _ everything _ to get pregnant, and you didn’t say anything?! This  _ whole time?! _ You knew I wanted children before we even got married!”

Harry doesn’t say anything. 

Catherine storms out of the dining room. 

“You asshole,” Stafford snaps at Harry before getting up and following her. A moment later, they hear the front door slam, and a few moments after that, a car starting.

“No,” Arthur says, eyes wide as he runs to the window. “No, she wasn’t supposed to go with him, she was supposed to come back to  _ me--” _

“You piece of shit!” Harry bellows, and  _ that’s  _ when all hell breaks loose.

He swings at Arthur, but Alexander and Charlie restrain him, Meg’s mum trying desperately to shield Arthur.

“You piece of shit!” Harry keeps shouting. “You couldn’t just let her go!”

“You stole her from me!” Arthur shouts from behind their mother. “You stole her and then you cheated and lied to her! You don’t deserve her!”

“You don’t deserve her either, you sick fuck!”

“That is  _ enough!” _ their dad roars. “Both of you, stop this!”

What happens next happens very quickly.

Harry manages to break free from Alexander and Charlie’s grip, somehow, lunging forward to grab for Arthur. But their mum is still standing in front of him, and Meg doesn’t stop to think, she just sees a furious Harry coming right at their slight, scared mother, and she rushes in, shoving him back. 

Harry stumbles and, incensed, swings a fist in her direction. 

Meg isn’t scared, really. She’s been in fights before, and she’s been in fights with Harry. She knows what he can do, and what she can do. So she doesn’t flinch or think twice, she just ducks.

But Alexander doesn’t know she’s going to duck. Or maybe he does and he doesn’t care. All she knows is that he grabs Harry, spinning him around before he lands an audible blow to his face. 

A sickening crack fills the air, followed by Harry’s yowl of pain as he falls back on the floor, blood spurting everywhere.

Alexander leans over him, hauling him up by the front of his shirt. “Don’t you  _ ever _ raise a hand te her again, ye hear me?!” he bellows.

The room is stunned into silence, save for Harry’s whimpering. Meg grips Alexander’s shoulders, pulling him back. “Come on, it’s okay,” she says quietly.

He’s rigid with anger, but he lets her pull him back, still glaring daggers at Harry. 

“Charlie, help me get him up,” her dad says, and the two men haul Harry up by his arms, walking him to the kitchen. 

Thomas Boleyn clears his throat. “I think...we had better leave.”

“Yes,” his wife says quickly, “we had better. Thank you...for having us,” she adds awkwardly, and then the five Boleyns flee for the door.

Meg’s mum looks tenser than Meg can ever remember seeing her. “Meg, can I see you in the living room?”

Nonplussed, Meg follows her mother into the adjoining room, watching as her mother shuts the door behind her. She turns to Meg with a clenched jaw. “He has to go.”

Meg blinks at her. “Harry?”

“No. Alexander.”

Meg feels her mouth fall open. “But...Mum, you...you saw what happened. Harry tried to  _ punch _ me, Alexander was defending me.”

“He didn’t have to punch and threaten him,” her mum says in the voice of one who is trying to be calm but struggling to do so. 

Meg feels like she’s fallen through the looking glass. “Mum, Harry almost  _ hit _ me. And you.”

“He’s my son, Meg.”

“And I’m your daughter!” she shouts back, hurt bleeding through her shock. 

“What happened just now is between you and Harry. You are of course welcome to stay, but Alexander has to go. Now. I can’t have someone like that under my roof.”

Meg feels her hands shake. She balls them into fists, her fingernails digging into her palms. “If he goes, I go with him.”

Her mum inclines her head tightly. “That is your prerogative.”

Meg wants to cry. She can’t believe her mother is being this way right now. Meg was defending  _ her, _ she was making sure Harry didn’t hit  _ her, _ and Alexander was defending Meg. It’s Harry who should be thrown out, Harry who cheated on his wife and lied to her and tried to attack his own mother and sister.

But Meg is re-remembering an old truth: Harry, no matter his faults, will always be the golden child. Her parents said nothing when he got caught drinking underage and doing drugs, they hushed up all his school scandals, they pulled strings to get him into every school and job he’s ever had. They didn’t say anything when they knew he stole Catherine from Arthur, they didn’t say anything when it wrecked Arthur’s mental health, and they won’t say anything now. 

That’s the problem. They won’t say anything. Just like they didn’t say anything when Meg had an affair with her professor and tried to commit suicide, just like they didn’t say anything when she went to a psych ward for six months. Her parents don’t look in the face that which makes them uncomfortable. She’s always known that about them, but now, she’s beginning to understand just how destructive that part of their psyche is. 

“I hate you,” Meg whispers, and storms out of the living room.

Alexander is in the hall, ashen-faced. 

“We’re leaving,” she tells him. “Right now.” She tries to pull him upstairs, but he grips her hand, stopping her.

“Ye don’t have te do this,” he says quietly. “If you wanted te stay here, I’d understand.”

She kisses him furiously.  _ “We _ are leaving,” she tells him. “I’m choosing you.”

She doesn’t miss the emotion in his eyes, but now is not the time. She tugs him up the stairs, where they pack hurriedly. She wipes tears from her eyes, knowing this is not the time for that, either. There will be plenty of time later, on the long car ride back to Edinburgh. 

They load up the Vauxhall, and Meg might be forgetting some things, but they clearly aren’t that important. She hugs Mary and Aunt Maggie, the only two people who have come outside to see them off, and then she’s climbing in the passenger seat, her heart pounding.

“Ready te go?” Alexander asks softly.

She nods, and he starts the car, pulling away from her parents’ house.

Only then does Meg let herself cry.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are - the end!
> 
> When I started writing this, I was convinced no one was going to read it because it was such a ridiculous idea. I am very pleased to have been proven wrong. 
> 
> Thank you all for being part of this - I hope you enjoyed reading this fic half as much as I enjoyed writing it.

The ride back to Edinburgh is a long one. Meg spends most of it leaning on Alexander’s shoulder, listening to Frightened Rabbit and trying not to think about the scene she left behind. 

Every so often she glances at her phone, but no one has called or texted her, and somehow that makes it worse. Not that she would go back at this point, but it hurts to know that her parents haven’t tried to reach out to say they’re sorry, to please come back, they’ll make this work.

She tries to apologize to Alexander a few times, but he won’t let her. 

“Isnae yer fault,” he says stubbornly. “I just wish I’d gotten in another punch.”

“Yeah, me too,” she admits.

He shakes his head. “I coulda killed him when I saw him coming fer you.”

“I can handle Harry.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean you should have to.”

Meg has never heard anyone say that before. Her whole life, it was always about how she has to love her brother and accept him for who he is. Not once has anyone said she  _ shouldn’t _ have to handle him. 

She settles into Alexander’s side and watches as the English countryside whizzes past them.

.

They get to Meg’s flat so late that it’s early. They crawl straight into bed, too tired to even unpack.

When she wakes a long time later, Alexander dozing beside her, she reaches for her phone to check the time.

It’s past noon, but she barely notices for all the texts on her screen. Texts from her parents and Mary and Aunt Maggie and even Arthur, and suddenly, it all comes rushing back to her. 

“I put it on silent,” Alexander murmurs beside her. “Didnae want it te wake you.”

She puts the phone facedown on the nightstand, rolling onto her side to face him. “Thank you.”

He cracks open an eye, giving her a sleepy smile. “Happy Christmas.”

“Is it?” she asks wryly.

“It can be.”

She decides that he’s right. Just because of...well, everything, doesn’t mean she can’t have a happy Christmas with him. She moves closer to him, worming her way under his arm. “What did you have in mind?”

.

They spend almost the entire day in bed, fucking and cuddling and napping. There is almost no food in her flat since she’d been planning to be gone for a few weeks, so eventually Alexander nips down to the store to grab a few things. 

While he’s gone, she goes against her better judgment and scrolls through her messages. The texts from her parents keep vacillating between angry at her for ruining Christmas to concerned that she hasn’t responded. Mary keeps asking if she’s okay, Aunt Maggie sent a few texts saying she loves Meg and just wants to make sure she got home okay and if there’s anything she needs, and Arthur just said,  _ I love you, Meg, _ which makes her tear up. She texts him back that she loves him too, texts Aunt Maggie that she’s okay and she loves her, and then she calls Mary.

Her sister picks up almost at once, breathless. “Hey!”

“Hey.”

“Uh...Happy Christmas?”

Meg actually laughs. “Sure. Happy Christmas. Though according to Mum and Dad, I ruined Christmas, so…”

“It’s okay, I ruined Christmas, too.”

That surprises Meg. “What happened?”

Mary sighs. “Well, after you left, I yelled at Harry and Mum and Dad, and it sort of, ah...slipped out that I was dating Charlie.”

“Oh shit.”

“Yeah. Harry was pissed, predictably. He tried to punch Charlie, but his nose was broken, so you know, that only went so far. There was this big shouting match, and basically, I left to spend the night with Charlie and Arthur left to spend the night at Aunt Maggie’s, so Mum and Dad had to deal with Harry on their own. They were right pissed at first, kept blowing up my phone telling me how ungrateful I was and what a bad sister I was for ruining Christmas, but I think it finally dawned on them this morning that they keep favoring Harry and it’s literally driven all their other children away. They keep asking me to come back but I think I’m gonna let them sit with it for a while.”

“Good idea. Jesus.”

“Yeah. So, we’ll see what happens there.”

“I’m guessing you haven’t heard from Catherine yet?”

“Nobody has, or from Stafford, either.”

“Welp, looks like Catherine’s getting that baby.”

“Oh, god.” Mary’s quiet for a moment. “How’s…?”

“He’s good. He went to the store. He’s been handling everything surprisingly well.”

“And how are you?”

“Eh...trying not to think about it.”

“I get that. I think we always kind of knew our parents got this way, but we’d never seen it to this level, you know?”

“Yeah,” Meg agrees. “We hadn’t.”

“I wish you hadn’t had to leave.”

“Me either, but…”

“I know.”

They’re quiet for another moment before Mary clears her throat. “I thought...maybe Charlie and I could come up for New Year’s?”

Meg smiles. “That would be really nice. You and I have never been out drinking before.”

“I know!”

“You should come,” Meg says. She can hear the door to her flat open and knows Alexander is back. “Both of you. You can crash on my couch.”

“I’d love that.” Mary clears her throat. “I should go, but...I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“I’m glad you’re okay, too. Love you, Mary.”

“Love you, Meg.” 

She hangs up, reaching for shorts and Alexander’s discarded flannel shirt before she pads to the kitchen, where he’s reaching into the shopping bags. He lets out a huffing noise when he sees her, shaking his head.

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Walk around wearing my clothes and turning me on when I’m trying te cook.”

“Well, I could take the clothes off,” she says with a grin, reaching for the buttons.

“You want te eat or not?”

“Eat,” she says sadly.

He kisses her and then smacks her bottom. “Go back te bed and stop distracting me.”

Meg climbs back into bed with a dopey grin. This is definitely the strangest Christmas she’s had so far...but it’s also far from the worst.

.

Alexander doesn’t leave her side in the days that follow. They stay in her flat and only leave to nip down to the store; the rest of that time is spent in her bed or on the couch. 

If Meg only thought she loved Alexander before, she knows she does now. She loves falling asleep and waking up beside him, she loves having sex with him and showering with him, she loves that he likes to cook for her, she loves when they talk and when they do nothing but watch TV in silence, she just…

Loves him.

“Things will be different when school starts back up,” she tells him with no small amount of reluctance. “I’ll have to go to class and study and write papers and--”

“And I will be there te make sure you get eight hours of sleep and three meals a day and don’t stress yourself out too much,” he says without missing a beat. “I know we can’t stay like this twenty-four/seven. I just wanna be there whenever you need me.”

“I always need you,” she says, and she knows it’s cheesy, but it’s true. After all this time spent together, she can’t imagine time spent apart.

“Then I’ll always be there.”

.

On New Year’s Eve, Mary, Charlie, and Arthur take the train up to Edinburgh. Meg is surprised but delighted at this last addition, hugging him tightly when he steps off the train. 

“It’s felt really good to get away from Mum and Dad,” he tells her on the way to her flat. He seems different now. Freer. Less awkward. Like he’s finally come back into himself. “I know they love us and want the best for us, but…”

“Their idea of what’s best for us doesn’t always align with our idea.”

“Exactly,” he says, relieved she understands. “I thought it was brave of you, to walk out like that. And I think it gave Mary and me the nudge we needed.”

“You’ve been staying with Aunt Maggie?”

“I have, and I’m applying for jobs. Small stuff, you know, but...it’s progress.”

“That’s great!” she exclaims.

He ducks his head. “I was too hung up on Catherine for too long. I think it’s time I tried to be my own person.”

Meg doesn’t dare ask about Catherine, but she doesn’t need to, because Mary shows her the other woman’s facebook, instagram, and TikTok, all of which have blown up in the last few days. Catherine has filed for divorce and is “working on herself;” but Meg can’t help notice the pictures she’s posted with Stafford. They both look incredibly happy with each other, and given Stafford’s track record, Meg is fully expecting a pregnancy announcement any day now. 

Harry, to everyone’s delight, is doing poorly. He’s moved back in with his parents and is growing what Mary says is a truly horrific beard. Both factors have significantly impacted his dating life, which is now nonexistent. 

“It’s what he deserves,” Meg says cheerfully.

.

That night, Meg and Alexander take Mary, Charlie, and Arthur out on the town, hitting up their favorite haunts to ring in the new year. Meg has never been out drinking with either of her siblings before; Arthur was always too important, too serious to go out drinking with his little sister, and Mary has only recently turned eighteen. 

They all have a good time, though. Mary is predictably overexcited at bar-hopping, as most recently-turned-eighteen-year-olds are, and as part of his “new year, new me” campaign, Arthur loosens up and is more fun than Meg can ever remember him being. 

She has the best time, though, with Alexander, who is always close by, always finding an excuse to touch her. It’s often too loud in the bars to hear each other talk, but the way he touches her and looks at her is a whole conversation in and of itself. 

They’re in their favorite pub, the one where they always slip off to the toilets between rounds, when the clock strikes twelve. Everyone counts down together, watching the timer on the TV screens. 

They reach midnight with screams and shouts, people hopping up and down and grabbing their friends and lovers and even perfect strangers. Mary kisses Charlie, Arthur kisses the pretty girl he met all of five minutes ago, and Meg tips up her head to kiss Alexander. 

Kissing him never gets old, no matter how many times she’s done it. When he pulls her close, it feels like everything around them melts away, like there’s nothing in the world except the two of them. 

She hopes that feeling never goes away.

All around them, people start singing “Auld Lang Syne.” Meg grins against Alexander’s lips, wrapping her arms around his neck to bring her even closer.

“I’m glad I’m here with you,” she tells him.

“I’m glad I’m here with you too,” he says sincerely.

She wants to tell him that she wants to ring in every new year with him, that she wants to celebrate every Bonfire Night and birthday and Christmas with him, that she wants to spend every day and night with him, even the ordinary ones. But it’s loud in the bar, and she doesn’t have the words, and she thinks that he understands, anyway.

So she brings her mouth close to his ear and asks, “Wanna sneak off to the toilets and fool around?”

She can feel his grin against her cheek. “Thought you’d never ask.”

They slip away from her siblings, who are too wrapped up in their own partners to notice anyway. People in the corridor are too drunk and happy to pay much mind to the couple slipping into their usual toilet stall; Alexander locks the door behind them and then presses her to the wall, his face close to hers.

“I love you,” he tells her, and Meg beams. 

Just like kissing him, she doesn’t think hearing those three words will ever get old.


End file.
